The Girls' Closet

I wanted to do a dramatic before and after, but guess what?  Most of my 2009 pictures are gone with the crashed computer.  I kept all the important pictures, like of Munchkin picking her nose, but for some reason failed to imagine the day I would want old pictures of closets.  Instead picture a typical closet with one shelf about 6 ft high with a rod underneath.  I added another shelf  3 feet below that for toys.  There was a lot of unused space.  Got it in your head?  Good.  Now here's the dramatic after.

AFTER!

Ta da!!  I am  HUGE fan of track systems, especially for kid closets.  Sizes and contents are always changing and I like something that can change with that. This is closet is only 46" wide and now has enough space for two girls.  It's so hard to find pictures of small closets.  So I'm doing my part to add variety to the internet.
I decided to divide it vertically so each girl could have their own side of the closet.  Perhaps when Tumbleweed is older I'll let her pick out her own clothes and move them lower, but for now having them high ensures she wont be changing her clothes 50 times/day.  Munchkin assures me she is past that phase...we'll see.  If not, I can rearrange.
Instead of buying individual pieces I priced it out and found it was cheaper to buy a kit.  I bought a 6-8' kit because I want to do something similar to Jack's closet.  It ended up being about $50 less to do it that way. *
Not only was I able to divide the closet to work for 2 people, I was also able to add another shelf in the top.  You can almost see it in the picture.  I can't fit anything huge, but 3 under the bed storage boxes fit perfectly.  They hold the next year's clothes for the girls.  One of the things I did was use the old shelves I had in the closet before.  Reuse what you can!

Installing this organizer meant we no longer needed a small bookcase taking up floor real estate.  And in a small bedroom, the less furniture you can have, the better! 

Coming up next week:  I painted Jack's room!!  Good bye big boy blue!


UPDATE*kit was Closetmaid and bought at Home Depot for $129.  Lowes has a Rubbermaid one for the same price.

Want to know what I'm fitting here?  Here's a list left to right, and top to bottom.
Top shelf: 3 under bed totes of clothes to grow into.
Next shelf: 2 shoe box totes with blocks and toy cars; more clothes; blocks; dvd boxes, one with doll clothes, the other is empty.
I plan to add another shelf on the left, but it will cost another $15.  For now I'm stacking.  Duplos on a music kit; Noah's ark on floor puzzles; 2 year old's clothes
4 year old's clothes; 16" deep shelf (I already had it and cut it to size) with 4 stackable totes on it.  The totes were obtained from BYU surplus (sorry, Crazy), and measure 12x15x6.5.  They hold shoes, puzzles, and stuffed animals, for now.  I'm building something else for the animals I'll post about when I finish.  They'll probably hold other toys.  I'm sure there's something similar at IKEA or even Target.
Floor: laundry basket and toy chest with dress ups.
If you ask me, there's still WAY too many toys.  We'll be going through everything again in a couple of months before yard sale season.  I promise to post again about what we're fitting in their room.