Living in (and renovating) an old farmhouse has been my dream for as long as I can remember… and now that we’ve essentially finished renovating our very own farmhouse, I’m still just as big a fan of these old houses!
A few of the features I LOOOOOVE about our house are the crazy sloped ceilings, unique bump-outs, and weird closets in almost all the rooms in our house!
Yes, they can be a challenge to work around, yes they can make organizing our things a bit more frustrating, but they add so much character and charm to our house that it’s worth the extra effort (in my opinion)!
One of the crazy closets in our house is in the boy’s new shared bedroom upstairs.
The closet itself isn’t overly large, and the sloped ceilings make it nearly impossible to utilize all the space efficiently (not to mention it’s really tricky to get all the way to the back if there are clothes hanging in the front!
I’ve highlighted the closet space below so you can get a feel for how odd the shape is, and how little usable space there actually inside (especially to hang clothing).
It’s very difficult to get to the back of this closet (the far left in the picture above) as you really need to crouch down low. And we couldn’t make the opening of the closet any larger because of the sloped ceiling.
So… I had to get creative in order to maximize this space for both boys’s clothing and several extra things we wanted to store in this space.
NOTE: I’ve shared a few glimpses into our kids’ recent bedroom “switch-a-roos” on social media over the past few weeks, and I’m SUPER excited to share the “finished” rooms with you soon!
We’re trying to make videos and it’s taking us newbies a while to figure everything out… I’ll hopefully have those posts ready to go for next week!
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One of the first things we did to make this closet more functional was to remove the closet door.
We actually removed the door soon after we moved into the house because it was a mirrored door, and those have always creeped me out (especially in the middle of the night).
The picture above is what this closet looked like when we moved in (2011). The picture below is what it looked like when Nora first took over this bedroom in 2013.
This closet didn’t have a curtain for several years, but we recently added one to “hide” the closet, while still allowing very easy access to everything inside.
I’m a HUGE fan of the curtain!
I should quickly mention that the boys each have one drawer in the white dresser for their pants, shorts, and socks. I use the other 2 drawers for clothing that is too big and to store an extra blanket for each of their beds.
They keep their PJ’s and underwear in the bathroom as that’s where they get ready for bed after their bath/shower.
Everything else is in the closet.
As you can see by the picture above, we have quite a bit of stuff stored in this closet!
We keep the kids’ sleeping bag on the top shelf (they play with them fairly regularly so we like to keep them easily accessible — but high enough that they have to ask us before getting them all out.)
The top rod has both boys long sleeve shirts, sweatshirts, and long sleeve church clothes (all things they don’t wear regularly right now).
I put a set of hooks below the top rod for their robes, belts, and backpacks. These are just play backpacks, not their school backpacks which are stored in the mudroom.
When you peek further inside the closet, you can see another rod I hung width-wise in the closet. This rod has all their spring/summer shirts and church clothing.
They can both reach this rod, so they are able to pick out their own clothes every morning and get dressed without any help!
Eventually, I will switch the short sleeve and long sleeve — or have them pick out a long sleeve shirt the night before since they can’t reach the top rod.
NOTE: I separate the boys clothing based on the hanger color! 🙂
Simon has grey hangers, James has tan hangers. (For the record, Nora has pink and Clara has a darker tan)!
This seems to make it easier for everyone to put clothing away, and easier for them to keep clothes organized within their closet.
These are the kids’ hangers I LOVE, and use exclusively for all kid’s clothing.
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There is still quite a bit more space behind the lower rod, so we put 2 shelves back there for toys we don’t use as often and for the bin I toss their “too small” clothing into until I’m ready to bring it away.
This area is easily accessible by simply pushing their short sleeve shirts to the side.
It was pretty tricky to take pictures of this space (it’s just so awkward!) but so far, I feel that we have really maximized the amount of storage space in this crazy closet with sloped ceilings!
We are EASILY able to fit both boys’ clothing with plenty of room left over for other things like sleeping bags, extra toys, too-small clothing, back packs, etc. etc.
It’s full, but it does NOT feel too crowded or cramped. We can easily see and access everything in the closet without much effort at all.
I’m certain we will continue to morph and tweak this closet as our needs change — however, for now, it works so well for the boys, and I’m thrilled with how well we’re utilizing this abnormal storage space!
Do you have any crazy closets in your house? If so, how do you maximize the space?
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The post How I Maximized Our Storage in a Closet with Sloped Ceilings appeared first on Andrea Dekker.
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