Sunday, September 6

Two Kids, One Dresser {less really is more}

Our two boys have always shared a dresser. It started because we just had one dresser, but now it's become a more strategic move. Our house is about 1200 square feet, but we want to make it feel as big as possible. Especially in the winter when we tend to be more cooped up, we want to have plenty of room for the boys to run and play. One of the best ways we've done this is to be careful with how we use furniture. Because less furniture = more space. We don't keep pieces that aren't useful (we recently ditched our little-used coffee table for more open floor space in the living room) and try to make sure the pieces we do have are really functional for what we need.


So let's take a peek in their dresser. We have it organized with little brother's clothes in the bottom two drawers (so he can reach them), big brother's are in the next two (he's tall enough to see in both of his drawers), and the top drawer has all of their socks and other miscellaneous items like leg warmers, belts, and tiny bow ties. Let's do a quick dresser tour, starting at the bottom - in the very bottom drawer is an organizer bin with his little underwear and all of his shirts. Right now it's mostly short sleeves and tank tops, but there are a few long sleeves tucked in the back for chilly days. The next drawer has jammies on the left side and all of his shorts (plus a couple pairs of long pants).


Big brother's drawer are similar - shirts and underwear on bottom, jammies and pants on top.




The top drawer uses several bins to keep things tidy. There is a sock bin for each boy, plus one for leg warmers and a small basket at the back for belts and misc. And you can see our unmatched socks floating in that open corner. :)


One of the keys to making this work has been limiting the number of clothes they have. It's tough sometimes because all the little clothes are so cute, but our rule is that if it doesn't fit in the drawer, it can't stay. So when even when we come across those cute shirts at a yard sale, we say "no" if there's just not enough space (or sometimes say "yes" knowing something else will have to go to make room). But even with this rule, they have plenty of clothes in their drawers - they have shirts in the bottom of the drawer that I don't think they've even worn! As they get bigger, and their clothes get bigger, I'm sure we'll have to reassess and make some changes but for now we enough space and a little to spare.


Oh, you want a peek in their closet, too? The only clothes we hang up currently are their nice button-ups, sweaters, and extra jackets and they all fit easily on one rack. There's also plenty of room for extra blankets, some toys and bins, and their laundry basket.


Big brother's dress shirts are on the left, and little brother's are on the right.


This has worked really well for us so far. We do have to switch clothes with the seasons, so in a few weeks we'll fill the drawers with long sleeves and pants, and stash the summer clothes in large totes in the basement. We have a small corner of the basement dedicated to storing totes of clothes, but we figure a few boxes in the basement is better than taking up space in their room with a second dresser! We also stash outgrown clothes as hand-me-downs for little brother any future babies. It's so nice having the next size clothes ready to pull out when we need it, and it saves so much money over rebuilding a wardrobe from scratch.

We're always trying to make our little house feel more spacious, and only needing one dresser has helped so much in the boys' room. What are your favorite ways to save space and manage all the stuff, especially when it comes to your kids' rooms?

2 comments:

  1. We have a small house and small budget and 7 kids. Right now we have 5 kids in one room. 2 sets of bunk beds and a crib . So we have one dresser for 4 and a changing table with drawer that hold the rest. To expand the space we took out the closet.. so each child has one drawer..that's it. Seven outfits for each ...works just fine.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Wow! Good job. It would be so hard for me to pare down to seven outfits (keeping it to two drawers is sometimes hard already, especially with the bigger boy/clothes). We might have to do something like that when we add boy #3 to the room though! Thanks for the inspiration! :)

      Delete

Subscribe