We asked our good friend, Jenny, to write an entry about her very clever idea for organizing dress-up clothes:
Whenever anyone asked my daughter what she wanted for Christmas this year, they got exactly the same answer – “dress-up clothes, a baby care center, and games”. We already had some of the big Disney princess dresses
I’d gotten an idea from the dress-up area at Johnny’s Toys – they have cubbies where the clothes are hung on pegs, with space for shoes on shelves above or to the side. I searched online, but I couldn’t find anything like it. It was time to get creative. In our basement, we have four bookshelves for toy storage. Two of them are a good size and configuration to store toys, games, and puzzles. The other two are … not so great for that. So I thought about it and decided with some rearranging, toy donation, and refresh of toys at Nana’s, I could free up those two bookcases for dress-up storage (after all, they already contained two bins full of the accessories). I took all of the shelves out of one and installed a tension rod for hanging the dresses instead. I put the maximum number of shelves in the other one and used it for storage of shoes, wands, purses, and crowns. The bins for some of the accessories will eventually have princess stickers or something on the sides for the finishing touches, but I haven’t gotten to that yet. The drawers hold extras, wands, and jewelry. We moved these bookshelves side by side, and added a mirror on the pole next to one for the ultimate in kiddie dress-up fun. Now everything is neat, organized, and on display – a very enticing play area!
7 comments so far:
That’s adorable. For my kids, all we have is a large pull out drawer. I guess if I took their dress-up a little more seriously, perhaps they would clean up a little more often?
Actually, I did a similar thing to Jenny and bought a Mammut armoire from IKEA to organize all of my daughter’s dress-up clothes and she loves it so much she does return everything to it after playing. I think it does help if there is some type of unique storage solution for toys, kids actually enjoying putting the things back then. Hmmm…I tend to be the same way!
TSS, I think one of the cute kid’s lockers available on your site would be a great piece to use for this idea. (Use coupon code SS5 for 5% off at The Shelving Store)
Thank you! I’ve been struggling with trying to figure out how to handle their clothes & didn’t want to buy one of the expensive ones I have seen online. Great idea!
Thanks, Meg! We will let our friend know how much you like her idea. Welcome to our site1
where did u get the bookcases
I ordered mine at Home Decorator’s Collection but any bookcase will work as long as it has adjustable shelves. These are nice though – they have the drawer at the bottom!