Gracie's New Closet

A little over a week ago, my husband took care of a much-needed project: redoing Gracie's closet!

As you can tell from the photos below, her closet was messy and there was a lot of unused, inefficient space.

 

I used a cheap white shelving to hold some of her toys.  The laundry basket holds her stuffed animals that she doesn't play with very much.

The grey box in the lower right holds Gracie's clothes that are too big for her right now.  On top of that is a stack of pillows, blankets, and a basket that we use to gather up her things from the rest of the house.

As you can see, the top of the closet is not used at all!

After Robert painted Gracie's room and closet 3-1/2 years ago (when I was pregnant with her), he did not put the (old, ugly) closet rod back in.  I bought a shower tension rod to use until we could redo the closet.

Now that Gracie is older and is able to put her things away when I tell her to, it was time to fix up the closet.  I was tired of all her stuff being scattered all over and there not being a planned space to put them away.

After we bought the closet system from Lowe's, I cleared out the closet in preparation for my husband to install it.  Gracie was excited about her new place to play and wanted to sleep in her closet that night.

While I had everything cleared out of her closet, I took the opportunity to go through her clothes, put away her clothes that were getting to small, and getting out the next sized clothing.  I love doing that because it's like Christmas to see her new things.  I shop the clearance racks, thrift stores, and yard sales for larger clothing, and then will fill in the gaps at a consignment store or retail store.

This cubbyhole is for Gracie's shoes.  She is familiar with the concept since she has to put her shoes in cubbyholes at the Chick-Fil-A playplace.  She loved putting her shoes away, and was disappointed that she had a hole left over!  She has since done a pretty good job of putting away her shoes.  She has also put socks in with her shoes, presumably to make it easier to put on her socks and shoes.  I thought that was a pretty clever idea!

The only thing I don't like about the shoe cubby is that part of it is behind the front wall which makes it harder for me to reach in there.  I originally wanted it to be hung on the side wall so that it was perpendicular to where it is now and facing towards the middle of the closet.  We may have to change that at some time in the future.

The finished closet!  I have a shelf at the top which has a couple of bins and some boxes of toys (blocks and building logs).  The side shelves also have toys.  The blankets you see have been moved to a large drawer in her dresser.

The top closet rod has Gracie's church clothes.  Her Sunday clothes are on the left, and her Wednesday night clothes are in the middle of the closet.  The bottom closet rod has dresses that she can wear whenever she wants.  She also has other clothes in her dresser.  She also has a backpack ("like Baby Drew's!") for toys to take somewhere. (Baby Drew is our little friend at church.  He brings his toys in a similar backpack to our ladies prayer group each week.)

On the floor she has her box of larger clothes (winter clothes for next year as well as up to two sizes larger for the following year or two), her suitcase (which she loves to pack to pretend she is going to her Mia's), and her laundry basket.  I'm glad I can get the laundry basket out of the main part of her room!

On the back of the closet door is a hook from which I have her portable DVD player case.  (The DVD player is actually on top of the bookcase in her room.  I'm too lazy to put it in the case!)  I also have a couple of Command hooks which hold her favorite sweater and a hoodie.

One day soon, I will do a post showing her room.  I still have a few things I want to tweak before I do a full post on it.