The Family Closet

Alright...I'll be the first to admit here that I thought the only people who actually implemented this were in dire need of unattachment parenting classes. We do not have children sleeping in bed with us til they are 3, I am guilty of weaning them before they can ask politely for me to cough up a boob for a suck or two, I eat granola but not in saving the earth quantities and though I have begun wearing all of our babies I do not walk around hugging trees, saving whales or preserving a beautiful tomorrow. Yes, we cloth diaper full time now, I use washable wet wipes these days, I make my children blow their nose on hand towels and we home make the majority of everything that goes into our mouths. So maybe we fit the mold a tiny bit when defining attachment parenting, granola eating, saving the world people but the whole closet sharing idea was over the edge for me to embrace. Ok....so I don't really do the whole nasal elimination on hand towels thing but I suppose I have considered it. Not in an effort to conserve the world....though I am glad we are doing more than our fair share of contributing to its well being but more so for us in an effort to conserve money and be as possibly frugal as we can be given a family of 10 on a firefighter's salary. So, though we may be at one with the earth, it is due to sheer necessity and I doubt I'll be making out with trees anytime soon or running with the wolves pleading their cause. How does that tie into attachment parenting??? Cause most people who practice attachment parenting also practice being one with the earth and I felt I should just clarify that we aren't there yet.

All of that to say....the family closet was a little too close to the whole idea of attachment parenting where you're just a little too one with your children. So, I criticized those who did it and refused ever giving in to the thought of actually admitting it's a pretty darn good idea.

With Grayson's chores having been transitioned to almost all outside duties I rearranged and that put Evye in charge of folding clothes and Aubrey was to help with towels. The amount of time it took one to two people to put up clothes was ridiculous. Granted, it is Evye we are talking about. The same child who never sees the need to speed anything up. And, honestly, I grew very tired of having baskets of clothes sitting outside bedroom doors due to napping children during put up time. Then the clothes in the baskets went on to sit for the remainder of the day and sometimes even on into the next day before finally getting put up. And by that time they had inevitably been expertly sat on, rummaged through or just plain dumped out so little boys could participate in laundry basket derbies down the hallway. Being the lover of organization that I am I began to contemplate the system and couldn't help but notice that it wasn't working at all. Time to go back to the drawing board. I was humbled to find that the only sensible option was pretty much to ...."gasp"....resort to an everybody closet. Do I dare humble myself enough to admit my prideful, judgemental ways and actually admit these people are on to something????? So, I decide it is worth the bath of humility that was required of me. I devise a plan and promptly set to work to better our clothes life.

Armed with 13 new, small laundry baskets I cleared shelves and began to organize and categorize. I transported the 3 small plastic rolling drawer carts from various places of the house into the closet under shorter clothes. Girls underclothes and socks, girls' pajamas and sleep shorts, girls' jeans and shorts, all boys' socks, little boys pj's and underwear, little boys jeans, little boys' shorts, Grayson's jeans and overalls, Grayson's shorts. This went on for a couple of days as I contemplated what was the best arrangement. The most freeing thing in the whole deal was the now designated "shoe baskets". Grayson owns his own shoe basket, girls share and little boys share. We have attempted on more than several occasions to keep perfectly lined and matched shoes together on shoe shelves but invariably each day there is a shoe hunt and tears shed over missing shoes.....or someone makes it to a destination without any on at all due to the closet miraculously having swallowed their shoes right up! And I will be the first to attest to the fact that closets have quite an appetite for children's shoes....more specifically, little boys' shoes. Little by little I was beginning to gain confidence as I went. I realized that this might actually be worth it. Brad was more than a little skeptical as I required him to give up his personal space and invited the entire family into our closet. Girls' shirts and dresses hung with mine on the "girls' side" of the closet while little boys shirts hung up high with Brad's uniform pants and jeans while Grayson's and Brad's shirts hung down low on the "boys' side" of the closet. White laundry baskets lined up like little soldiers sit on shelves perfectly. I even carried it out into the linen closet where fitted sheets have a basket, seldom used flat sheets have a basket and pillowcases have their own smaller tote type basket. We rarely ever use flat sheets due to the ease of bed making. I have found that when children are provided with a fitted sheet and heavy blanket that even a 3 year old is capable of making up their own bed. Only the older ones use comforters but even those are still placed directly over fitted sheets. From Aubrey on down they just use heavy blankets with fitted sheets. They are each in charge of making their own bed every morning and the lack of a wadded up flat sheet makes it easy on everyone. Even Gavin gets in on the action as he expertly rolls his blanket into a ball and places it squarely in the center of his bed. I suppose it's the thought that counts. Without fail his best buddy will come to his aid, spread it out and lay it imperfectly across his bed, much to Gavin's utter morning delight.

So it is that we have many more flat sheets than fitted stored at any one given time. Baby blankets got a basket and then larger fleece throws and light wintry night blankets got a basket of their own. We ended up consolidating so very much in the everybody closet that we even had 3 baskets left over with nothing to fill them with! I still have to move over Ivye's little things to her own baby basket but overall, most of the switching has been done. And I must say that we are all absolutely amazed at the system that has revolutionized clothing for us. Once clothes are folded all hanging items go to one central location. Once socks are matched and non hanging clothes are folded she just merely carries it to one location and places it in the correct baskets. No napping children to worry of waking, no placing items in 15 different drawers and 7 different locations. Just one trip and a quick sort of what goes in which basket. I even got some clear plastic page protectors while grocery shopping last week. I printed off in large print what went in each basket. "Girls' Pants and Shorts", "All Boy's Socks", "Little Boys' Pants", "Little Boys' Shorts", etc. I then zippy tied them to the rims of the basket so that they hang neatly and state clearly each baskets' purpose. I think I may go back and reprint it all on colored paper to make it even easier. Big girls' items could be on hot pink paper, Grayson's on red, little boys on green or blue and baby's on pastel pink or blue. Sweet Ivye's would, of course, be pink! I think it'd make it amazingly easy to identify at a quick glance.

But I must say that the shoe baskets have been the greatest idea ever!!! Yes....they do have to fish around in it to find a match but the basket is large enough that this is easily done without shoes flying everywhere and being dumped in the closet floor. And when someone sheds their shoes they LOVE tossing them into the basket. It is neat, orderly and super clean. We even had room to put one of our older square laundry baskets on the floor in the corner for dirty clothes. It took only a few days to discover that this was now resembling Grand Central Station in the clothing dept. Kids shed pj's within it, if showers did not happen that night kids shed daytime clothes, discarded socks were strewn about as shoes were removed and tossed in baskets. By the next day I discovered the no longer needed, clothes hanger basket. I promptly gave it its new use as dirty clothes basket in closet floor. So far, and we are now weeks into this, the change in dealing with clothes is phenomenal. Each child finds it easy to chunk dirty clothes into the square basket, shoes are always where they belong and easy to find and clothes, though they may get unfolded in the rummaging of looking for a specific piece, are all well contained within the designated basket.......unlike drawers where they were half in/half out and incapable of being pushed all the way in unless everything remained folded.

I guess the creator of the family closet did indeed have some sense and practicality about them. And I can now say that we have proudly implemented the family closet into our own home. Now having been through this experience I have told Brad that if we ever build a house in our lifetime that we need a sizable laundry room connected to a small bedroom sized closet in which we can carry on our family closet. That would be so entirely great if a laundry room directly connected to a bedroom sized closet.

And an added benefit that surprisingly popped up in the deal was the fact that it eliminated all clothes from the bathroom beside the utility. So, a long empty rack now stood available for anything and everything. Instead of having to deal with a wadded up mess of clothes hangers tossed into a laundry basket I hurriedly retrieved them all in my excitement as yet another long term problem had been solved. They are now perfectly lined up on that clothes rack neatly hidden within the closet.

I realize a picture is worth a thousand words so I will work on documenting our switch from traditional to eccentrically large everybody closet idea. After having done this I can honestly say that this idea will work on any size family and simplify all of laundry life in general, cutting down work time considerably.......be it a family of 4 or a family of 10. It's just amazing to have it all in one location to go to in the morning and at night and to put up when clean. I am quite impressed with this change for us. So, pictures will follow.