Back to School Closet Organizing
Summer is rushing along and school will start soon. Are you and your children ready? Here are some helpful tips to ensure that your child has an organized closet and an efficient way of handling clothes.
The time to clean out your child’s closet is BEFORE you shop for more school clothes. Start off by scheduling uninterrupted time with your child so he can try on everything in the closet. Discard items that don’t fit and items your child doesn’t love or won’t wear. Discard stained and ragged clothes and shoes, and either repair or discard damaged items. Pick up everything off the closet floor and relocate items that don’t belong in the closet.
Before you put things back in the closet, give it a good vacuuming and dusting. Now, as you put clothes back, arrange them either by type of item, by color, or both, whichever your child prefers. For example, assign jeans, dress pants, short sleeve shirts, long sleeve shirts, and jackets their own sections in the closet. This exercise will show you what your child really has to wear, can wear, and will wear, and should influence your new clothing purchases. You might find that there are plenty of short sleeve shirts, but you need to purchase 3 new long sleeve shirts. If you want a better visual for the closet, use the same type and color of hanger for the clothes.
When returning shoes to the closet, put them on low shelves, shoe racks or hanging racks. Racks allow more dense storage of shoes and keep mates together.
If your child’s closet is small or doesn’t have well-designed storage, consider adding additional storage. For inexpensive shoe storage, add a low book case to the closet, make a shoe rack out of PVC, or purchase a hanging shoe rack. Consider adding double-hang storage rods for shirts and pants and hooks to hang belts, backpacks, and purses. For more dense storage, install a closet system with drawers, shelves, and multiple hanging rods.
Before you head out for the back-to-school-shopping, make a list of the clothing items your child needs. Stick to your list and your budget and avoid impulse buying. Have your child try on everything before bringing it home. Hang up new clothing in the appropriate sections of the closet – by color and type. Remind your child that dirty clothes go in the hamper, clean clothes are to be hung in the appropriate section, and damaged clothes go in the mending pile. When you make additional purchases during the school year, use the 1-in, 1-out rule – for each item added to the closet, an old item must be removed. If discarded items are still usable, there are many charities that would welcome them.
Your child’s closet should always represent clothes that are ready to wear. All clothes in the closet are mended, clean, ironed, and usable. To ease the stress of getting ready for school in the morning, help your child select clothing the night before. That way, there is no discussion, no searching for lost shoes, no rushing to iron a shirt, no hurrying to sew on a button. Mornings should be smooth and peaceful, and an organized closet and efficient clothes planning contribute to that peaceful time.
So put some time on your calendar to get your children’s clothes under control and have a wonderfully organized school year!
