Behind Door #1 - Kids' Bedroom Closet

In most cases, visitors aren't going to be opening up closed doors in your home.  A lot of times these spaces become the ignored corners of the house thus allowing you to throw whatever you want in them in order to maintain tidiness elsewhere.  But, there is something exciting about having a closet/room that's organized even if the door stays closed 99% of the time.  It's like you did something for yourself and your own sanity that you don't have to share with the rest of the world.  Organization isn't one of my highest qualities but I certainly strive to be better.  My goal is to tackle all of these spaces in our house (and there are a lot of them!) to keep life a little simpler for us. 

Our kids' bedroom closet redo came out of necessity.  With a new baby on the way, our two older kids (ages 5 and 3) were now sharing a room.  The single rod wasn't going to provide enough space for their clothes and other random items like suitcases, sleeping bags and pillow pets.

And even though it's a closet, scuffed up walls and dirty paint really bother me.  Opening these doors and seeing this...

...is almost as disheartening as the shoes that couldn't seem to find their way in the basket.

We decided for this closet to give each kid (1 boy, 1 girl) their own side and a shared middle.  Each side would consist of double rods for their clothes and the middle would be a common space for dirty clothes, shoes, accessories, etc.  A fresh coat of paint was the first step and since the walls in their room are a light grey, I went with yellow to add a little fun. The next step was to build the closet unit and paint it. We went with MDF for the parts that are white since it is a little cheaper than plywood and a few stained 1x's for the heavier shelves. NOTE:  If you are going to make something like this, paint it first and then touch up after installation.  It was pretty difficult to paint the shoe compartments(especially since I was 9 mos preggo at the time). 

The final result is a simple closet system that works for our 2 growing kiddos:  space for their clothes, their suitcases, their shoes, dirty clothes and even unused shelves for future needs.

One little tip that works for us:  The wicker basket on the right is full of "I don't care if they get ruined" clothes.  We have lots of outside time that consists of mud and dirt so if we are going to be getting dirty the kids know they can pick out anything in this basket to wear and it doesn't matter what they look like after a fun day.