January Resolution: Nursery Closet

As part of my New Year's resolution, I planned to complete one big organizing project per month. This month, I decided to tackle James' closet {who I will lovingly refer to as LBJ on here. Since he is named after my father, who Brit calls "Big Jim," we started calling James, "Little Big Jim" or LBJ for short. And if Simon is nicknamed Brit, then James will be nicknamed LBJ}. Anyway... let's pretend it's still January today and that I shared this project on time. I mean, I got the project completed in January so that counts, right? 

The closets in our new home are essentially an organizer's dream. They are custom closets with plenty of shelves and drawers. The only small problem is... I'm not a drawer type of organizer. If there's space, I prefer to hang items up. 

We added three closet rods by cutting down one large piece {thanks to the muscles of Brit}. Some of the clothes in the before picture are actually hung by balancing on shelves. Being able to hang up more items allows us to see everything easily and we are sure to not forget about clothes before he grows out of them. 

I used one of the added rods to hang up bibs as well. I was having such a difficult time figuring out how to store them without just throwing them in a drawer. Since most of them snap or velcro together it is easy to hang them up and pull them down. 

And can we just briefly focus on these adorable tiny shoes and booties?

We were able to hang the center rod high enough to use the shelf below to store many of the sweaters LBJ's granny knit for him that wouldn't fit nicely on hangers. One of the reasons I'm not a huge fan of drawers is they make it difficult to see everything. Using the shelf to store the folded sweaters, we can easily see each one. 

All of the drawers aren't going completely to waste though, don't worry. We use the top drawer for socks, booties, and hats. The rest of the drawers store extra diaper genie rolls, manuals for his swings and seats, and other silly baby needs. 

The tough thing about organizing his closet is knowing just how soon I'm going to have to go through it all again. This kid is growing up too quickly! Using some small bins, we stored the clothing that won't quite fit him yet and the ones he's grown out of on the shelves. 

I hid the newborn bin on the top shelf so that I won't be able to see the adorable little outfits inside that LBJ was only able to wear once or twice. Full disclosure, when he grew out of his newborn clothes {at 3 weeks old}, Brit and I went out and bought all of the exact same outfits in 3 month size and just pretended the growth spurt didn't happen. That's some serious denial guys. 

We removed several shelves from the space for now since he really doesn't have that much to store at this time in his life. That made space for our extra boxes of diapers and wipes.

The one thing I always try to emphasize with people I organize for is ensuring a space is organized in a way that you will maintain. For example, I like to organize my clothes by color, other people prefer to organize by occasion. There really is no right or wrong way, it's just a matter of what works best for you. 

In my opinion, as long as items are easy to take out and put away, it's easier for the space to stay organized. I am also someone who likes to be able to see all of my options at once, so keeping clothes at eye level and exposed {not in drawers}, works best for me. 

I love using the backs of closet doors for storage. In LBJ's closet, we hung items like the bear suit he came home from the hospital in {small tear drops} and his tuxedo {because what baby doesn't need a tuxedo}. As he grows up he can hang other items like book bags or hats there. 

Now that I've finished organizing this space, he just had another growth spurt {25 inches long at 2 months, who does this giant think he is?!}, so I'm sure I'll be shifting things around again soon. 

How do you prefer to organize your clothes, folded or hung up? Any parents out there who want to share some tips for organizing baby clothes? 

Thanks for visiting!