No Dresser for Clothes?

[love4bob]

I was wondering if anyone doesn't use a dresser for their kids clothes? I was thinking of doing something in the closet like baskets or something to sort their clean clothes instead of folding them and putting them in the dresser. They have a dresser, but it gets overfull(my two girls share it), and the clothes usually just end up unfolded anyway from them sifting through them or my 2 year old taking them all out.... lol. I think it would be easier to just have basket sorting of shirts, pants, socks, underwear, ect., and for things that would wrinkle easily like nice dresses or really nice outfits I could hang up.

Anyone do something similar?

[love4bob]

http://www.walmart.com/ip/Badger-Basket-Stackable-Wood-Storage-Cubby-White/15689204

I found this and was thinking it might work well! One unit per child for their clothes then small baskets on top for underwear, socks, tights. 

[Drummer's Wife]

We don't have any dressers in our home, and I don't miss them at all.

[LeighPF]

We had one apartment with a wall of shelves in the closet. I loved having everything stacked there.

[PeacefulSeams]

We don't have dressers either. The boys clothes are stored in a rubbermaid tote with a lid. Their socks and stuff like that are stored in the laundry basket in the bathroom cabinet. That is where all the socks are. We are working on putting some shelves and a rod in their room but it's so tiny I don't know where to put it just yet. 

[skreader]

We have wardrobes. We hang a lot of things on hangers and you can also buy hanging things that make drawer-like spaces

Try googling "hanging closet storage" and choose images and you'll see stuff

[amma_mama]

DD has a huge closet so we use the hanging shelves, which are a cheap and easy solution. The ones made for shoes are perfect for undies and socks, while the bigger ones work well for folded shirts and jeans. Dresses get hung up and out-of-season clothes go on the top shelf. As DD grows, we may have to eventually get a dresser, but for now this works well.

[KnockedUpButtercup]

This isn't a dresser, as such, but sort of yes - I sound confused.  Anyway, I bought my son a bed with three big drawers underneath.  I think it originally came from Ikea, but I found it at a garage sale (I was driving by, spied it, and did a 180, lol).  Anyway, these 3 drawers are so huuuuuge that I store things like baskets of extra art supplies, games, etc. at the back just to keep his clothes from sliding all the way to the back, and clothes in the front.  Getting rid of his old dresser freed up so much floor space, and these drawers are so big that they don't seem to wind up stuffed and overflowing the way his smaller dresser drawers did.

So, I was thinking that if you wanted to get rid of dressers, what about using a couple of those "under the bed" plastic boxes, and just leaving the lids off?  They would save space and be out-of-sight except when needed.

[dbsam]

My daughter's room is set up as you describe.  She has hanging rods for much of her clothing.  There are also wooden shelves in her closet and we have a basket for each of the following:

underwear

tights

pj's

legging type pants

casual shirts (2 baskets - summer/winter)

shorts

bathing suits

Periodically I need to organize and re-fold in the baskets because of the way she pulls out items and puts them back if she decides not to wear them.  But I need to do the same with her brother's dresser.

My son has a small three-drawer dresser for underwear, shorts, and t-shirts.  He has a very small area for hanging shirts in the closet.  He also has wooden cubbies built into his closet to store shoes, folded pants, folded sweaters, folded sweatshirts.  As a pp mentioned, the drawers under the bed are nice too.  My son has three drawers built into the platform of his bed - in the largest one I keep his extra sheets. He has the other two for his 'treasures'; he collects/accumulates just about everything so we found it was best to have several areas in his room he can store or display these items instead of battling over what he can keep.

[34me]

I found a closet organizer T Sam's club that has shelves on each side and a double rod in between. I put bins on either side in the shelves for socks, undies, shorts, etc. They share a small bedroom and it's really helped...

[netgyks]

Our older ranch home came with one of the closets divided in two. It's a small closet, only 3 feet wide, but oh my goodness so much more usable space! Just goes to show just how important layout is as opposed to square footage.

So this little closet has two rods, one on top where I used to keep my tops, and now that I've moved out of that closet, we keep the out of season clothes for our son hanging up there. Then one rod on bottom and that used to hold my skirts and pants, but now it's in season clothes. The other half has shelves all the way up to the ceiling, probably 6 or 7. It used to hold my computer clutter and now it's mostly clothes. Some shelves still have leftover home office stuff that I haven't sufficiently purged. I keep a basket for his socks up there and I'll probably start one for underwear when he agrees to wear them :)

Those hanging organizers, like the ones at IKEA, they are cool, but if you can just build in shelves yourself that go all the way back, it will be more usable space.

And the IKEA bed--we have that for our guest room, itty bitty 10x10 room. Usually it's a twin bed, but it pulls out to a king when company is here (like now) and the drawers, oh nirvana! Captain's style beds are so nice. I really dig the well-designed furniture that pops up at IKEA every now and again like that bed.

[carmel23]

We don't have dressers, well, my DH and I have one, but none for the kids... we have *huge* old closets, and I am looking for a better way to organize everything.  I am considering getting the small 30 dollar dressers from ikea (3 drawers) one for each kid, but that is 4 dresses... and I just don't know.  I am thinking of other way to organize clothes...

I love reading this thread because I am at a loss right now, not sure if I want to get dressers... but don't really know what to do.... under the bed storage might work, but it might get messy....

I don't know but I like to read all the other great ideas in this thread!

Sorry this is so spacey. ...

[MamaPam]

My children don't have a dresser either. Their shirts and dresses hang, and then they rubbermaid containers with drawers. They each have a drawer for pants and shorts (depending on season), pajamas, and undies. There's also some shared draws for things like tights, hats, and gloves. I labeled the drawers with what goes in the them and a drew a little picture, so even the non-readers know where things go. Since each drawer only holds one type of item it is pretty easy to stay organized. The only thing they tend to leave on the floor or mix up are the pajama drawers. You can fit quite a few of those drawers units in a closet, which leaves you more floor space in the bedroom too.

[ArtsyMomma]

I love the set up I have for my girls clothing.

I hang up everything - shirts, dresses, pants.... I put away their clothes in an organized manner (dresses with dresses, shirts with shirts, etc) and all in rainbow order. Pants go on a second rod that hangs from the top rod. For now, I use the clippie hangers that clothes hang on in stores. I saved them for a while when we bought something new.

There is a sweater organzier hanging on one side of the closet, I stack full sets of PJ's there. The girls can just grab what they want to wear. There is a small rubbermaid dresser in the closet with a drawer for underpants, a drawer for socks, and one for slippers.

[LCBMAX]

No dresser for my 3 year old. I decided to give him the pleasure of dumping everything out of a basket to find the pants he wants to wear, same with long sleeves in another basket, short sleeves in a 3rd, underwear in the last one. Socks are in a basket by the front door, near the shoes. We get to play "putting things away" and he can dress himself and choose his whole outfit with no tugging on drawers, or messing with hangers. I don't fold, obviously!

[Rainey Daye]

The closets in our smaller bedrooms have two sets of rods with shelves over them...so in Bug's room his closet is set up like this.

Extra sheets and quilts and odds and ends that must be kept (a bare minimum of stuff) go on the upper shelf.
Jackets and shirts for Bug go on little hangers on the upper rod.
Backpack and a small wall mounted hamper go on the wall opposite to where Bug's jackets and shirts are hung.
Then on the lower shelf I have lined baskets that I bought at Joann's or Michael's (can't remember). Bug's swim diapers are in a little zipper bag like sheets come in to the far left, then a large lined basket comes next with diapers/pullups in it, then a small basket for pajamas, then his shoes are lined up on the shelf next, then a small basket that holds his cloth undies/socks/etc. has a small folded lightweight blanket folded and set on top as a separator and his shorts are folded and stacked on top of that, then the final large basket (which right now is full of extra pullups, but eventually will hold not only the folded pants that sit atop it, but the folded shorts that sit atop the basket beside it).

You can actually see pics of how it's set up on page 47 of the "Post pics of your clean, clear space" thread.

[love4bob]

Originally Posted by LCBMAX 

No dresser for my 3 year old. I decided to give him the pleasure of dumping everything out of a basket to find the pants he wants to wear, same with long sleeves in another basket, short sleeves in a 3rd, underwear in the last one. Socks are in a basket by the front door, near the shoes. We get to play "putting things away" and he can dress himself and choose his whole outfit with no tugging on drawers, or messing with hangers. I don't fold, obviously!

Do you ever have any issues with wrinkles? I'm not super OCD about wrinkly clothes, but too many obvious ones bug me. lol. 

[LCBMAX]

Originally Posted by love4bob 

Do you ever have any issues with wrinkles? I'm not super OCD about wrinkly clothes, but too many obvious ones bug me. lol. 

Not hardly - it's pretty much all cotton too. But then again, within minutes it's all covered in dirt, so if there are wrinkles, that's the last thing I'm thinking about. I think having a big enough basket for the amount of clothes keeps them from getting tight and wrinkly.

[BeanyMama]

My 3yo has a bookshelf with largish baskets on it for her clothes, she likes to go through them and put away her own laundry so this works really well. It's a couple feet from the wall corner; we put a pressure rod between the shelf side and the wall at her height level to hang her dresses and 'hang up clothes' on. It's been nice, and helpful!

[mumm]

We put shelves in the closets to stack clothes on.  (Milk crates actually)  It works fine.  Smaller baskets for socks, underwear, tights.  My son has a hanging mesh thingy-majig from Ikea for his underwear and socks.  We don't have much that would need to be on hangers so we just hang them on hooks.  Half the closet for clothes, half for hiding in!

Edited by mumm - 4/24/11 at 3:37pm