Wednesday, May 11, 2011

The great season change over, the family closet, and thoughts on laundry

It's that time again.... when the world has to change over their children's clothes to more seasonally appropriate options.  Ok maybe not the WHOLE world but still.  Having four kids you can imagine that this is no small feat here.  But to be perfectly honest it went very smoothly this time.  So far.  I popped on a movie, gathered the clothes bins around me to sort out the wintery stuff.  I had the boys bring their own shorts down from their bedrooms the other day so that part was already done.  They wear t-shirts year round so for switching from winter to summer it's really just about taking out the pants and long sleeved shirts.

Then I sorted the stuff I'd removed from the bins into keep and don't keep piles.  Spider monkey being our last monkey child (we believe at this time) there's not a lot of reason to keep stuff he's outgrowing.  I know myself well enough to know that Princess will never EVER be in a position of needing to wear boy hand me downs.  So most of his outgrown shirts went into the go pile.  So sad for me.  Very bittersweet.

Next up Princess' stuff.  I sorted hers out more because I needed to sort out what didn't fit her anymore (it's been a while).  I still have to sort through her outgrown pile to see what I'm going to hold onto (even though again we have no plans for more babies - it's hard to let go) and what I'm going to hand off.

It's just a clothing organization revival this week.  Laundry is one of my most time consuming chores.  Part of it is because there are just TOO many clothes.  I theorize that if I cut down the clothing options it will help with the laundry.  This is two-fold.  First, the more laundry we have the longer I can put off washing and drying and putting away and at that point it's an overwhelming mountain of clothes and sheets and sometimes diapers (I did mention that I cloth diaper 95% of the time right?).  Second the boys' bins (I'll share pics in a moment) get overfull and when they pull something out things end up on the floor in front of their shelf and then they get trampled on and so I know that I inevitably end up washing clothes that were never even worn!  So I'm cutting down on the laundry.  I think 10 shirts and bottoms should be sufficient.  They each will have two nice church outfits separate from their regular clothes.

Now we have a family closet.  When we moved into our current home one of my favorite features was that the laundry room was a fantastic size and right next to the bathroom.  It could only be more perfect if it had a closet for mine and KOJ's hanging clothes.  Here are a few pics (and yes it's a MESS!) :
 The pile on the floor on the left is the keep and store upstairs pile, the pile next to that is Princess' stuff that I haven't sorted through yet.  The pile on the other side of Howler is the get it out of here pile.  In front of Howler tons of random socks and gloves and such that I NEED to sort out and get out of here too.
 That is the bins the boys' clothes go in.  Top shelf is Squirrel's, then Howlers, then Spider.  Shirts in one and pants and underwear in the other.
 This dresser has mine and KOJ's non-hanging clothes.  KOJ's t-shirts, shorts, lounge pants and underwear go in the top huge drawer and mine are in the one below it.  I'm not at all sure what's in the three thinner top drawers. That pile on top of this dresser is outgrown stuff I need to sort through still.
This dresser holds the boys' jammies.  The top drawer has their nicer "church" clothes.

And that is our Family Closet.  I love it and I wouldn't change it except for it would be super nice if those bikes we're not using could find a new home.

So how do you deal with your laundry and seasonal change over?  Do you think less is more?  More or less?

2 comments:

  1. I've been working on storing winter clothes. I need to work on organizing the clothes that are currently out. Since we're moving, I'm hesitant.

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  2. I need to do our switch over too and am dreading it! The boys each changes sizes TWICE over the winter so I have all these hand me downs that won't work now and need to get rid of the too small stuff. We are havin a garage sale in two weeks...so I better get going!

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