organizing with 2 kids....

[ho11yb]

My DS room is about 9x9-small! #2 will be with us initially, But eventually they will somehow share. In the meantime, #2s diapers are going in 1s dresser (whack doubles as a changer), we are putting a small 3 drawer dresser in our closet under DH's clothes, and have organized ds's closet so it is divided in 2 halves. One side has 2 hanging bars, and the other half has 3 shelves (laundry basket on bottom) in addition to the closet length shelf on the top row. Right now the shelves have extra PFs, baby blankets, hats/gloves, spare toys, etc. We will move most of those out and add them to our linen closet or hall closet and use the shelves for cfolded clothing for the boys. Thankfully although the room is tiny, it does have a large closet.

[solarbabies]

Originally Posted by AniBee How small is small? Some would consider our house small & it probably is, but to us it's perfect. Do you have a finished basement? A large living room? Both of our boys have their own room but DS2's closet is pretty large so we keep some storage in there. We also try to keep things really minimal. We keep toys to a minimum, we love closed storage, we use our basement for a lot of storage & our personal art/crafting place. Our living room is also a decent size, so I have a cabinet in there that houses my photography/scrapbooking stuff.

It's a smaller double wide trailer. There are 2 closets in the whole house...DD's and ours. Both are very small and not considered walk in. We have no hall closet, pantry, ect. The laundry room is only big enough for a washer and dryer, not open at the same time. Living room is also pretty small, but it would work better if we got rid of a couch...we have a set, 1 2 seater and 1 3 seater. No basement, no attic space, and a very small amount of storage in a shed/workshop outside.

Originally Posted by RainandRedemption Is there any reason you need the guest bed? Could you do without it? I might try getting rid of all the unneccesarily stored items (everyone has it) and the guest bed. Use your dds room for their beds, a rocker if you have one, their soft toys, etc. Use the 3rd bedroom for your sewing and crafting things, their dressers (or just his) and their toys. Then when you want to craft they can play happily there too

The only reason I want to keep that bed is for the long nights after DS is born. We have a waterbed, so no co sleeping. When DD was born and I had to get up to nurse her, I would take her into the other room on the spare bed and latch her on and sleep while she nursed. It was so nice to have that! So once he is solidly STTN, I don't mind getting rid of it. But until then, I really want to keep it. But this is what I will probably do...right now that 3rd room is intended to be craft/computer room but last winter when it started getting cold we moved that stuff into our room so we could close the extra room and not heat it. Since then, it has turned into the catch all room and is a disaster zone.

Originally Posted by ho11yb My DS room is about 9x9-small! #2 will be with us initially, But eventually they will somehow share. In the meantime, #2s diapers are going in 1s dresser (whack doubles as a changer), we are putting a small 3 drawer dresser in our closet under DH's clothes, and have organized ds's closet so it is divided in 2 halves. One side has 2 hanging bars, and the other half has 3 shelves (laundry basket on bottom) in addition to the closet length shelf on the top row. Right now the shelves have extra PFs, baby blankets, hats/gloves, spare toys, etc. We will move most of those out and add them to our linen closet or hall closet and use the shelves for cfolded clothing for the boys. Thankfully although the room is tiny, it does have a large closet.

I like the divided closet idea. The closet is about as wide as 2 doors. It has a standard doorway opening. It's as deep as it needs to be to hang hangers and that's it! It has a built in shelf on top and 1 hanging bar. If I rip all of that out and add shelves on half of it and 2 hanging bars, that would probably be very worth while. Then I can build the shelves higher and make what little space there is more functional.


These are the only pics of the room I have. There is a crib where the pack n play was now. Otherwise it's about the same. First pic I am standing at the doorway looking in and the second pic I am standing by the dresser looking back toward the door. It's not the smallest room, but it's not the biggest. What I am hoping will work is toddler bed where the dresser is now, dresser against the window (which will make it impossible to open and I am not looking forward to that) and crib where it is now, but all the way against the wall with the window(it's under the tree now). I do have 2 shelves stacked on top of each other behind the closet door (when it is open) It's almost floor to ceiling and right now holds nb diapers, extra toys, books, ect.

[mcpforever]

My 3 and 4 yos share a room, one chest of drawers, and one closet. The chest of drawers holds socks and underwear (both kids in one drawer), pants (one pants drawer per kid), night clothes (both kids in one drawer). The closet is divided into two levels. I hang DD's clothes on the higher one and DS's clothes on the lower one. There are also shelves in the closet.

I hang a LOT of clothes including T-shirts. I put together outfits by hanging them together and it makes it quick and easy (and no arguments) to just pull an entire outfit out.

[RainandRedemption]

Originally Posted by javabarnes I like the divided closet idea. The closet is about as wide as 2 doors. It has a standard doorway opening. It's as deep as it needs to be to hang hangers and that's it! It has a built in shelf on top and 1 hanging bar. If I rip all of that out and add shelves on half of it and 2 hanging bars, that would probably be very worth while. Then I can build the shelves higher and make what little space there is more functional.

I love the closet idea, that would give you SO much storage room!

Your dds room is really cute! I want to paint my kids rooms but I'm hung up on not knowing how to get the paint to stick to the walls... We are in a double wide too, with the drywall that has glossy paper adhered to it, and paint will not stick! Did you have this issue? (totally off topic I'm sorry!)
I would love you forever if you knew how to get the paint to stick! We used the paint with primer in it.

[ho11yb]

Here's pics of ds' closet that will be shared once this LO arrives in November:


(he has way too many clothes but this is all his summer stuff & fall/winter stuff. I hang in outfits on a single hanger when possible to save room. The summer stuff will all be coming out soon & one of the hanging bars will be for #2) On the floor is a bucket of hand-me downs & clothes that don't fit yet, as well as a pile of clothes that have been outgrown & need put in storage. Above the top bar is a closet length shelf that holds extra toys & gear.

The other half of the closet with shelving Dh put in:

Eventually the shelves will be used for folded clothes for both boys - I'm thinking I will hang all that I can & just have a basket for socks/undies, and a shelf for jammies & other things we won't hang up assuming we will have to remove the dresser to make room for 2 cribs/beds. Currently one shelf holds wetbags with dipes ready to go for daycare, another blankets, hats/gloves, extra wetbags/pail liners, Stuffed animals & sposie wipes, and the empty one used to have a bunch of receiving blankets, crib sheets & baby towels, but I just moved those to the hall closet to clear some room for #2 & his things.

[solarbabies]

Originally Posted by RainandRedemption I love the closet idea, that would give you SO much storage room! Your dds room is really cute! I want to paint my kids rooms but I'm hung up on not knowing how to get the paint to stick to the walls... We are in a double wide too, with the drywall that has glossy paper adhered to it, and paint will not stick! Did you have this issue? (totally off topic I'm sorry!) I would love you forever if you knew how to get the paint to stick! We used the paint with primer in it.

That room was so hard to paint!!! MIL owned this trailer before us and had painted it an ugly pink with chaepo paint. It would come off if you touched it wrong because we have that wall paper like you explained. I HATE it, our kitchen still needs to be painted, I can hardly stand the wallpaper. What we did was got a GOOD primer (kiltz I think) and primed it 2 times. Before we primed it DH went over the whole thing with sandpaper. Not enough to take everything off the walls, but enough to make it not so smooth you know. After it was primed 2 times, we used a good paint (kiltz as well I think) and painted it twice. The circles and the tree are just acrylic paint. It is still more sensitive than paint on a better surface, but it works pretty good. There are a few little mess-ups now where the dresser rubbed the wall ect. So it is a TON of work but oh so much better than that ugly wallpaper (who the heck chooses that stuff anyway???)

Originally Posted by ho11yb Here's pics of ds' closet that will be shared once this LO arrives in November: (he has way too many clothes but this is all his summer stuff & fall/winter stuff. I hang in outfits on a single hanger when possible to save room. The summer stuff will all be coming out soon & one of the hanging bars will be for #2) On the floor is a bucket of hand-me downs & clothes that don't fit yet, as well as a pile of clothes that have been outgrown & need put in storage. Above the top bar is a closet length shelf that holds extra toys & gear. The other half of the closet with shelving Dh put in: Eventually the shelves will be used for folded clothes for both boys - I'm thinking I will hang all that I can & just have a basket for socks/undies, and a shelf for jammies & other things we won't hang up assuming we will have to remove the dresser to make room for 2 cribs/beds. Currently one shelf holds wetbags with dipes ready to go for daycare, another blankets, hats/gloves, extra wetbags/pail liners, Stuffed animals & sposie wipes, and the empty one used to have a bunch of receiving blankets, crib sheets & baby towels, but I just moved those to the hall closet to clear some room for #2 & his things.

Oh my I LOVE that closet. I like the shelves above the hanging bars. If I get to redo the closet, I will probably do something like that for half of it and then the floor to ceiling shelves on the other half. Thanks so much for the pictures!

[mcpforever]

Originally Posted by ho11yb Here's pics of ds' closet that will be shared once this LO arrives in November: (he has way too many clothes but this is all his summer stuff & fall/winter stuff. I hang in outfits on a single hanger when possible to save room. The summer stuff will all be coming out soon & one of the hanging bars will be for #2) On the floor is a bucket of hand-me downs & clothes that don't fit yet, as well as a pile of clothes that have been outgrown & need put in storage. Above the top bar is a closet length shelf that holds extra toys & gear. The other half of the closet with shelving Dh put in: Eventually the shelves will be used for folded clothes for both boys - I'm thinking I will hang all that I can & just have a basket for socks/undies, and a shelf for jammies & other things we won't hang up assuming we will have to remove the dresser to make room for 2 cribs/beds. Currently one shelf holds wetbags with dipes ready to go for daycare, another blankets, hats/gloves, extra wetbags/pail liners, Stuffed animals & sposie wipes, and the empty one used to have a bunch of receiving blankets, crib sheets & baby towels, but I just moved those to the hall closet to clear some room for #2 & his things.

This is very much like what we have, but instead of pretty wood, we used closetmaid wire shelving. I love that we can adjust the height of the shelves as our needs change or add/subtract a shelf as we need.

To the bolded, my kid's wardrobes are always in a state of flux like that, too! I also have a special box of random stuff that has been outgrown butmissed being put away.