Project Simplify: That Pesky Closet

You all know I love a good challenge, right?  In January it was the Organizing Revolution (my posts on the office, the kitchen, the closets, and the kids' room).  In March it was the 31 Day Organizational Challenge, which you could pick a room and really focus on it for the whole month (my final post on our updated loft area).  And this month, it's Project Simplify.  Each Tuesday gets an area to simplify.  Last week's was drawers and shelves, and I actually didn't have any that immediately came to mind to work on, so I didn't do that one. 

Instead, I started on week 2, that pesky closet, because it's been bothering me for awhile.  And it is by no means perfect, but it's better.  One day the kids decided not to nap (which sadly for mommy is becoming a more frequent occurrence), so I decided to do some purging in their room, and some reorganizing in the closet.

The closet has been a dumping ground for a lot of things.  I keep extra diapers and wipes in there, as well as a basket for clothes that are too small.  The hanging clothes are the "fancy outfits" and snowsuits in various sizes.  These are things I want to keep in the closet.  It also held an extra kid-sized table and chairs, board games, puzzles, extra markers, and toys that I don't like the kids to have access to all the time because they have lots of pieces that just get dumped all over.

Unfortunately, I didn't take any before pictures, because the mood struck to work on the room, and I just went with it, but here's a picture from a few months ago that was pretty similar to how it looked beforehand:

I also went around the room and grabbed a bunch of old, missing pieces, broken or unloved toys and things to get rid of as well.  Between the closet and the rest of the room, I filled an entire tub!

I decided to bring the puzzles out to the living room for a trial run.  The last time we had multiple puzzles out, the kids kept dumping every single one out and then whining about having to put them all back at the end of the day.  We've established rules this time about only having one out at a time, and if that works well, I'll probably invest in a puzzle rack.  For now they are stacked under our living room table.

As for the closet, here's how it turned out. 

The diapers, wipes, and small clothes are still down below, but there is extra space in case any other toys need to go into time out.

The games stayed on the top shelf.  The box of Little People (the green box) and the tool set (the blue container on the right) moved from the floor to the top shelf as well.

And the "fancy" clothes and snowsuits stayed put.

I wish this closet had a lower shelf, because it would make storage easier, but I guess this is just my motivation to not have as much stuff in there!