Our growing family has found that the traditional American way of handling a family's clothes does not work. When there are seven people living in a four bedroom home, sharing bedrooms is a fact of life. I have no problem with this. I think sharing bedrooms is a good thing, but it does lead to a few problems. One of those problems is clothing. I can trust my 9, 7, and 5-year-old not to play in their dressers, but the 3 year old is a whole different story. It is just far too fun to pull all the clothes out of a dresser and roll around on them while you are supposed to be napping. As long as you are quiet, mommy will not even know what you are doing until the mess is made. Oh and if you have access to THREE dressers, ahhh, bliss. Except, what mother wants to spend the end of every single nap time cleaning up such a humongous mess? Yes, I can discipline for this behavior, but it tends to be one that lasts about a year and then is outgrown. Not so awful, unless you have many kids and face the possibility of returning to that one year of life over and over and over and over again. (I feel a little hysterical just typing that sentence!) One of my general mommyhood rules of thumb is - "Sometimes you need to change the behavior, sometimes you need to change the circumstances." This is a perfect example of changing the circumstances.
I read the Duggars book and thought Michelle had a fantastic idea. The Duggars have a family closet right off the laundry room. Clothing is folded and or hung and taken straight to the family closet. Wow, no more taking one basket of clothes to one room and one to another, accidentally putting clothes in the wrong room, or not having access to a room that holds a sleeping toddler! Yes, great idea...except...I don't have any rooms near the laundry room that would work for that purpose. Thus, we adapted the idea to suit our situation.
My husband took shelves from our master bedroom closet and hung them in the laundry room (a room that is a tiny bit bigger than a half bath.) That means, I have the original set of shelves, just over the washer and now a set of shelves across from it. Yes, I have to be very careful how I stand up, so as to avoid bashing my head or bottom into a shelf. I have adapted and have not had a bonk on either end in over a year. The shelves across from the washer hold a bin for every child in the family and one for socks. As I pull clothes out of the dryer, I sort them straight into these bins. Adult clothes, sheets, towels and the like go into a basket at my feet. Each child is responsible for folding their clothes each day. Some days that means a lot of folding, some days just a little. I have found this VERY helpful in discouraging my 7-year-old's tendency to wear 3-4 outfits a day! The younger the child is, the more help they get from either a parent or an older sibling. So far, this system has been a big help. Renovating my laundry room this way cost us about $14, the cost of 5 bins and a couple molly bolts (two of the support beams for the shelves lined up nicely with studs in the wall, but the middle one did not) and 2 hours of measuring, hanging, fuming, muttering about the confusion of being taught two systems of measurement and rehanging the shelves.
The next part of our laundry renovation was literally life changing for us. In our home, Mommy, Daddy and baby share the master bedroom. The boys have one room and the girls have another. The fourth room is the clothing room. This is a good sized room, about 10'x12'. There is enough space for 5 dressers, a futon and a three bin hamper. This room is also our guest room. It is not spacious, but it works. When clothes are folded, no matter what time, day or night, they can be put away immediately. No more laundry diving, digging through piles and piles of clean clothes in search of that one pink sock. No more sneaking into a sleeping toddlers room and oh so quietly opening the drawers. Less chance of a busy one year old pulling down stack of neatly folded laundry that is sitting on the couch waiting to be put away. When we need to pack for a trip, we put everyone to bed and then haul the suitcases into the Clothing Room. It is so easy to accomplish the task! When it is time to sort outgrown clothes and make a shopping list, I spend a couple hours in one fairly tidy room sorting things. YAY!!!!
Okay, for those of you who have actually set foot in my home recently, yes, I admit, sometimes the system fails and there are still piles of laundry to fold. I am, most assuredly, not perfect. However, when we follow the system, life is easier.
I read the Duggars book and thought Michelle had a fantastic idea. The Duggars have a family closet right off the laundry room. Clothing is folded and or hung and taken straight to the family closet. Wow, no more taking one basket of clothes to one room and one to another, accidentally putting clothes in the wrong room, or not having access to a room that holds a sleeping toddler! Yes, great idea...except...I don't have any rooms near the laundry room that would work for that purpose. Thus, we adapted the idea to suit our situation.
My husband took shelves from our master bedroom closet and hung them in the laundry room (a room that is a tiny bit bigger than a half bath.) That means, I have the original set of shelves, just over the washer and now a set of shelves across from it. Yes, I have to be very careful how I stand up, so as to avoid bashing my head or bottom into a shelf. I have adapted and have not had a bonk on either end in over a year. The shelves across from the washer hold a bin for every child in the family and one for socks. As I pull clothes out of the dryer, I sort them straight into these bins. Adult clothes, sheets, towels and the like go into a basket at my feet. Each child is responsible for folding their clothes each day. Some days that means a lot of folding, some days just a little. I have found this VERY helpful in discouraging my 7-year-old's tendency to wear 3-4 outfits a day! The younger the child is, the more help they get from either a parent or an older sibling. So far, this system has been a big help. Renovating my laundry room this way cost us about $14, the cost of 5 bins and a couple molly bolts (two of the support beams for the shelves lined up nicely with studs in the wall, but the middle one did not) and 2 hours of measuring, hanging, fuming, muttering about the confusion of being taught two systems of measurement and rehanging the shelves.
The next part of our laundry renovation was literally life changing for us. In our home, Mommy, Daddy and baby share the master bedroom. The boys have one room and the girls have another. The fourth room is the clothing room. This is a good sized room, about 10'x12'. There is enough space for 5 dressers, a futon and a three bin hamper. This room is also our guest room. It is not spacious, but it works. When clothes are folded, no matter what time, day or night, they can be put away immediately. No more laundry diving, digging through piles and piles of clean clothes in search of that one pink sock. No more sneaking into a sleeping toddlers room and oh so quietly opening the drawers. Less chance of a busy one year old pulling down stack of neatly folded laundry that is sitting on the couch waiting to be put away. When we need to pack for a trip, we put everyone to bed and then haul the suitcases into the Clothing Room. It is so easy to accomplish the task! When it is time to sort outgrown clothes and make a shopping list, I spend a couple hours in one fairly tidy room sorting things. YAY!!!!
Okay, for those of you who have actually set foot in my home recently, yes, I admit, sometimes the system fails and there are still piles of laundry to fold. I am, most assuredly, not perfect. However, when we follow the system, life is easier.
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