The "plan" actually started about 6 years ago when Joe was but a wee tot. As many of you know a baby requires massive wardrobe replacements about every 3 months until they turn 1...then the turn over slows to about every 6 months or so. As soon as Joe grew out of a size of clothing, I put it into a plastic bin (clearly labeled of course) for future use. How's that for a "wink, wink, nudge, nudge" to the hubby?!
In addition to our own thrifty-ness, our wonderful family saved and continues to save their kids clothes and passes them onto us. How they keep all these clothes in such good condition after having gone through 2 boys is beyond me. We can wreck some clothes over here. So, the bins started to multiply at a rapid rate...kinda like gremlins. At some point, the plastic bin mutated into Space Saver Bags....which I do not recommend for this kind of storage at all. A) They shrink into a egg shaped orb that makes it impossible to stack, B) They are more difficult to label clearly, and C) The bags rip easily if one tries to open then reseal.
Lo and behold, our next bundle of joy would not be using any of these articles as she prefers pink to blue. But, I was able to start collecting more bins for girls clothing. And praise the Lord for older girl cousins!
Along came Trey...and I was so pleased to be able to go through the bins and have exactly what we needed!
The problem with all this is actual storage space...a house never has enough, right? We were using the empty area in our basement next to the dryer to stack all the bins and lean the lumpy bags. This area quickly filled and it became too hard to get to the correct bin to put "new" hand-me-downs. And if we sprinkle that with a little truth...maybe I didn't want to dig through everything to put things away correctly. Maybe, I would throw a bag or two onto the top of the whole pile. Maybe someone would need to get to the fuse box and just start throwing stuff.
As this fire hazard grew, we knew we had to come up with a better solution. The second we knew the loft was going to be emptied it was already filled with visions of bins!
This is the storage space in the basement....
This is the new organizational wonder of the world...
Ahhhh...are you breathing easier? Me too!p.s. I'm sure Space Bags are a wonderful way to store things that you won't be using anytime soon, so please send your hate mail to someone else. Thank you.
6 comments:
I love that you have my future babies' clothes organized so meticulously! :) Seriously though- you should be proud...this looks really great. Don't you just love the feeling of being organized? Makes my heart sigh happily. Good work!
so do you have multiple bins for a certain size? do you organize clothes by season or just by size? do you always buy the same size bin? curious minds want to know AND super impressed by your organization! almost ready for us to visit and applaud your amazing efforts!
Words fail me. Glorious.
Thanks girls!!! The bins are separated by gender..there are waaay more boy bins because of the boy cousins giving us sooooo many clothes. They are not done by season, but strictly by size form left to right. So, 0-3 mos boys, 3-6 mos boys, 6-9 mos...etc. All the way up to 14+ boys!!! We are SET! Some sizes do have more than one bin because of quantity. I do try to get the same size bins each time, but buy whatever brand is on sale at the time. All shoes have been kept in separate bins by gender and certain sizes,
I'm facebooking you my address as we speak. Bring you and your mad organization skills! Dang, that's some seriously good looking baby clothes organization. Makes my happy heart sing! What a joy it must be to have everything so clearly labeled and easy to get to!
Congrats on the hard work! Great results!!!
I'm in love! I can't wait to finish our attic so it looks like this! You should see the Huffman's attic!!
Anyhow - THANK YOU for the space saver bag tip. I almost bought them, but now I will not!!
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