Organized and Simplified!: Four week "Wait No More" Organizing Challenge: Week Three: My daughter's closet

Hello all! If you haven't noticed yet, I am participating in the Four week "Wait No More" Organizing Challenge with Jen Jones at I Heart Organizing. If you've never been to her blog, you need to. You'll be blown away by her home and her talents. While you're there, be sure to check out some of the other bloggers participating in the challenge as well. I'm glad to be included among so many talented and wonderful people! You can find Jen's blog here.

Here are the other parts of the challenge I participated in:

Week one: my daughter's dresser
Week two: the pantry
Week three: my daughter's closet, baby's closet, and master closet
Week four: playroom

I am intending to re-organize our master closet, and the baby's closet as well, but I am not quite finished with those. I might have to cheat and post those next week :) I did finish my daughter's closet, and boy am I glad! A few months ago, we moved her out of the nursery and into a new "big girl room." Up until last week, her clothes were still in the baby room closet and the closet in her big girl room still looked like this:

Total. Monica. Closet. The mess you see here consists of clothes that won't fit in the master closet, paint, and junk. Lots of junk.

Needless to say, we put this stuff in the baby closet (for now, until we can add that extra rod to the master closet) and got to work organizing her big girl room closet.

I'm pleased to be able to share this "after picture" that is such a huge improvement:

We added a vertical closet shelf and one lower rod. My dad made this wonderful closet shelf for us using an Ana White plan, some lumber and nails. The lumber ended up costing us about $120 (we used actual shelf lumber instead of plywood), but we already had the closet rods and rod flanges. I purchased them over a year ago for about $10 total.

I already had the boxes, which I made over a year ago using diaper boxes and $7 fabric. You can read about them here. The Rubermaid totes were already here, and the baskets with the pink liners are from her nursery closet. We also already had the white paint. Altogether, this project cost about $137 dollars, and the closet is so much more useful.

Let me give you a bit of a tour:

The top left corner houses a Rubbermaid tote that holds her baby blankets. I am planning to cover the side of it with contact paper so you can't see the mess inside.

The baskets on the top shelf, which are left over from her nursery closet, house winter hats and gloves, tights, extra coat hangers and leggings.

The top rod holds outfits, while the lower rod holds pants and skirts. Some lesser-used, but still possibly needed items (like a few long sleeved shirts in case of a cool morning) occupy the back of the lower rod, and dresses occupy the rod on the right. We wanted the closet to grow with her, so she has plenty of room to hang her dresses when she's older.

Because she is a growing kid who regularly outgrows things, I created a "hamper" for donation items. The hamper is made from a cardboard box which I covered with cloth. Nothing wet is going into this hamper, so it doesn't matter that it's cardboard. Her memory box is stored beside the hamper and her weekend bag sits on top of the memory box.

The shoe rack was in her previous closet, so we reused it.

Well, that concludes Miss E's closet tour! I am not quite done with the baby closet and master closet but I am working on them. I will post those soon. Thanks for stopping by!