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Do you have a "family clothes closet"?

post #1 of 42
10/10/07 at 12:35am
Thread Starter 
We have a large family and for some reason putting clothes away is a monumental task! I actually saw on the Duggar show : that they have a universal closet for clothes for everyone. This seemed genius to me because instead of taking everyone's clothes into 4 different bedrooms, we could just hang it or sort it all out in one closet (the problem is finding a big enough closet)

Has anyone done this?

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post #2 of 42
10/10/07 at 1:22am
Yep! We're a family of 5 in this house and everyone's clothes but the babies are in our bedroom closet/dresser. 2 of our 3 have a dresser that they share and I've recently thinned it out so that the bub's clothing will go in it as well. We also have a few of those hanging closet organizers (the fabric things with shelves/pockets) as well. Mine I dh's undies etc go in a small dressing table that is pretty, but not big enough for much else It's not exactly a closet but everyone's clothes go to one room and you're right.. tons easier to put away
post #3 of 42
10/10/07 at 11:11am
Well, we do, but it's not really on purpose. My son is 2.5, and we have a small apartment, so we all share one bedroom. All our hang-up clothes are in the closet (along with our suitcases and a variety of random stuff there is no other place for, unfortunately), and there are two dressers in the room, a small one that is dh's and one I share with ds. So all the clothes go to one place, but I still always have cloth napkins, etc. that have to be distributed elsewhere.
post #4 of 42
10/10/07 at 11:17am
This has always been my plan for when we build a house. We're currently in an apartment, and have to keep separate closets. But when we're ready to build, we plan to have a LARGE laundry room with built-in wardrobes for each of us, along with a dressing area (we really don't care now, but I'm sure the kids will get modest at some point). I hate the clothing chase. I hate lugging dirty clothes downstairs, and then clean clothes upstairs, and I absolutely detest putting clothing away. The laundry/clothing chore is the one I hate the most.

By having everything in one spot, the dirty clothes should never leave the laundry room. When they're washed, I can simply pull them out of the dryer and immediately hang them up - no wrinkles. It just seems like a more simplified system, to me.
post #5 of 42
10/10/07 at 1:05pm
it's amazing how i never thought of this. it makes so much sense.

of course, it's just my husband and I, but we do have separate places to keep clothing. . .interesting. . .
post #6 of 42
10/10/07 at 1:08pm
no, but i wish we could.
post #7 of 42
10/10/07 at 2:05pm
That is a really smart idea. We plan to have 4 kids eventually (#3 is still baking ) and I already get overwhelmed with laundry with just 2! I'm great about actually washing it, its the folding and putting away that is a problem

I really need to go through all our clothes this week and really pare it all down. I've been meaning to do that for a month and I've had baskets of stuff waiting all that time I'll see if I can incorporate this idea. I might be able to make it work if DH & I could share a dresser in our room and put the kids changing table dresser where the other master bedroom dresser is currently. Probably would be easier to have it out of the playroom and in our room when the new baby is born too.
post #8 of 42
10/10/07 at 3:04pm
This is a great idea! We have more than enough room in our closet too! I currently keep ds1's and ds2's clothes in one closet, but I think I will put all our clothes in our way too big "master" closet.
post #9 of 42
10/10/07 at 3:39pm
Now why didn't I think of that? I can wash and dry clothes easily. Even folding isn't that bad but it never seems to make it to be put away. I HATE that part. This would be such a great idea for me. And the new house we're buying has a huge utility rm so maybe... Hmm. Something to think about. Great idea thanks!
post #10 of 42
10/10/07 at 4:03pm
What a great idea! Dh and I have a walk in closet and another good sized closet in our bedroom. My clothes and the baby's clothes are in my closet (the smaller one). Dh and our twins clothes are in the walk in closet. My older son has his clothes in his own closet.

We do this because the twins would destroy any chance of organization in their room. We know eventually we'll have to buy closet stuff though because there is just one high bar. But, now that I think about it, I wonder why? Why not just keep it all together in our room? Part of our bedtime routine is to go in our room each night and choose clothes for the next day. It's something to think about.
post #11 of 42
10/10/07 at 4:23pm
yeah, we pretty much do because DS sleeps in our room anyway. I hang his clothes in their tiny hangers between mine and DH's. Even though we're in the process of moving him across the hall to his own room I think we'll keep his clothes in our room. The real reason is because DH renovated the closets and he never finished them. So I use DS' for baby storage and my crafts. :
post #12 of 42
10/10/07 at 6:18pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by brittneyscott View Post
Now why didn't I think of that? I can wash and dry clothes easily. Even folding isn't that bad but it never seems to make it to be put away. I HATE that part. This would be such a great idea for me. And the new house we're buying has a huge utility rm so maybe... Hmm. Something to think about. Great idea thanks!
Hehehe I'm the same way Our started out quite by accident actually... when my now 3yo was about 20months old, he decided to climb the tall dresser and TIPPED the whole thing over on himself (thankfully he was unhurt, I on the other hand was 8.5mos pg and pulled a superwoman and pulled every muscle in my right side ) After that it moved to our room with a locking door for safety.

Since having everyone's but the baby's in there we have really noticed that HIS stuff seems to get stacked on top of that dresser & never make it to his room
So once we move everyone's will be in our closet/dresser.
post #13 of 42
10/10/07 at 6:49pm
Sort of. We have a family bedroom with nothing in it but two large beds, a laundry basket, and four smallish plastic sets of drawers - one for each kiddo. It also has a walk-in closet that houses all of DH's and my clothes plus the linens and the girls' dresses. So putting laundry away is really easy - dump it all on the bed and put it away all in the same room.

OT, but I have a great sorting system. Oldest child's clothes get one sharpie'd "dot" on the tag; next-oldest's get two dots, fourth kid's has four dots, etc. When something gets handed down to the next child, I add a dot. So even my youngest can sort and put away clothes, knowing whose is whose just by looking at the dots. I love it and can't believe I didn't figure it out sooner (I did it about a year ago).
post #14 of 42
10/10/07 at 7:37pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by amyamanda View Post
OT, but I have a great sorting system. Oldest child's clothes get one sharpie'd "dot" on the tag; next-oldest's get two dots, fourth kid's has four dots, etc. When something gets handed down to the next child, I add a dot. So even my youngest can sort and put away clothes, knowing whose is whose just by looking at the dots. I love it and can't believe I didn't figure it out sooner (I did it about a year ago).

This is one of the best ideas I've ever heard. We have four boys and this system is going to be implemented immediately.
post #15 of 42
10/10/07 at 9:58pm
We used to have a family dressing room/shared closet but now DH has his own closet and dresser in the "guest room" (he puts away his own clothes) and I share a closet and dresser with the girls. It works well for us.

We're downshifting to a much smaller house soon and will probably follow the same pattern of DH doing his own laundry/having his own clothing space (he works with sick animals/bio med waste and his clothes need to be washed by themselves anyway!). What I'd like to get though is one of those hanging clothing racks so I can hang things directly out of the dryer.
post #16 of 42
10/10/07 at 10:07pm
Nope, we don't have any closets big enough for that. We have 2 closets for 4 people, and we each have our own closet half for our clothes.

ETA: That "dot" idea is a great one- but not something I can implement in my home. DD2 has just outgrown her size 12s and DD1 still fits very nicely in her 14s, so I think my days of passing clothes down from DD1 to DD2 are over!
post #17 of 42
10/10/07 at 10:13pm
I would love to do this, especially if it were a huge laundry room full of shelves and closets. It would be so much easier to never have to even carry them to another room.

ETA: exactly what Nikki said, I missed that before. funny I was just thinking of this yesterday as we're looking for a house soon.
post #18 of 42
10/11/07 at 2:26am
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by Ruthla View Post
Nope, we don't have any closets big enough for that. We have 2 closets for 4 people, and we each have our own closet half for our clothes.

ETA: That "dot" idea is a great one- but not something I can implement in my home. DD2 has just outgrown her size 12s and DD1 still fits very nicely in her 14s, so I think my days of passing clothes down from DD1 to DD2 are over!
I'm fearing my great idea might be thwarted by our lack of closet space as well The problem is the boys' bedroom closet is the biggest but it's the one we cant use for clothes because of the risk of ds3 destroying it......I want to use our hallway closet (one of them) but i'm thinking it will only be big enough for four of the kids clothes.....then maybe I can keep dh's and mine in our closet in our room and dd12 (since she doesnt want to participate in our universal closet adventure) can use her closet for her own clothes.....but then alas....i'm back to at least two different rooms for clothing storage....
I dont know.....i'm still thinking.............
post #19 of 42
10/11/07 at 2:31am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Drummer's Wife View Post
I would love to do this, especially if it were a huge laundry room full of shelves and closets. It would be so much easier to never have to even carry them to another room.
AND you'd never have to iron!
post #20 of 42
10/11/07 at 3:25am
I have everyone's clothing in my bedroom. When I had the clothing in their rooms my children were awful about tearing clothing off hangars or out of drawers. They also changed outfits up to ten times a day just because. When I moved the clothes into my room I was able to just enforce the rule "stay out of my room" and the problems stopped. Bonus is that I can fold and put away the laundry after they're in bed and not disturb them.

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