Family closets are usually used by large families but you don’t have to have five or more kids to benefit from a family closet. Heck, you don’t even need to have a kid to enjoy the ease of keeping all the clean laundry in one place.
Our family is made up of two parents and two children (and two dogs and a cat). I refuse to carry clean laundry up the stairs and distribute clean clothes to several locations just for them to get dirty and need to be washed again. I can’t justify that effort when I don’t enjoy it and when there is an easier option, so we’ve set up our laundry room-adjacent family closet in a way that makes more sense.
It’s not magazine-pretty but I love it!
Here’s how the closet works: the clothes are hanging on a hand rail hung from the ceiling with rope. I added some screws on the ends (perpendicular to the rail) to keep the hangers from sliding off.
Embracing and hacking the laundry piles with (of course) baskets!
I have had many clever and functional Ikea storage solutions gather dust because I can't help but let my clothes pile up on the floor.... Read more
The basket of coats, jackets, hats and gloves will only be on that chair during the cold seasons. When it warms up they’ll go out into the shed (in a tub with a lid) and our swimming stuff will go in that spot.
I always keep a tub easily accessible for outgrown clothes to donate. Tossing clothes into the tub here and there helps keep the clutter down, plus it makes getting ready for a clothing swap much simpler.
We also have a reading nook in the family closet because you have to utilize all the space when your house is 700 square feet.
It’s a little odd, but it works well for us — and is a huge timesaver for me!
I connect to this so much!
I am a costume shop manager and this is right in tune with my work. I can’t believe I never thought of it before. As it stands we do this in a very unorganized manner! Meaning we simply wash the clothes and then dig through the hampers to find clean things! I am so doing this in our next apartment!!!
WTF THIS IS GENIUS.
I’m not a neat person in general, but most of my mess is CLOTHES. EVERYWHERE. I’m def going to work this idea out the next time I move so it’s all confined to one space!
I have been obsessing over this idea since it was posted and can’t wait to implement it in my new place. Thank you!
This may be just perfect for our next place and our lifestyle. We’re in a 700 sq ft apartment, and we’re buying a smaller cabin and hopefully adding a kid…Currently we use our bedroom closet to store fishing gear and snowboards and home brew and our boat. We store uniforms, suits and coats in in the entry closet, and our clothes in on dresser. I’d love it if we had a place to put the dresser near the laundry machines now, but it’s in the kitchen.
It’s a great idea. I think a changing room and a mirror will complete the room.
There’s not really a space for a mirror or a screen in there, but that would be pretty cool! We have a large mirror in the living room and we change everywhere (which currently works for us)
Other popular bi-fold doors are the mirror-paneled bi-folds. These are usually found in bedrooms and bathrooms of the home. Mirrored bi-folds may act as full-body mirrors and that is one of the traits that make them a favorite in the wardrobe area. Also specially effective in small spaces, mirrored bi-fold doors provide the illusion of having a bigger space when closed, yet allow maximum use of space in homes, restaurants, hotels, bars, or other interior spaces when opened.
I love this idea!!!!!!
i loved this idea and have done it in my house in a spare room its saved my bedroom and my clothes
This is an old post however I have been eating something like this for a long time. I was now checking to see how others feel it works! Happy to know other’s enjoy this set up. Once mine is set up ill be converting our closets into reading nooks. With small homemade selves from white plastic eaves trough and a big cushion. My room is a walk in closet so there is room for a table and chair with book self… A great mommy time out place!
My God… This is GENIUS. As soon as we have a home where we actually have in-suite laundry, I am SO doing this.
OOOOOMG I AM STEALING THIS IDEA!! Fantastic! See, me and my husbands bedroom is cluttered with clothes (no closet). We have 2 toddlers and 1 on the way, and no dresser in their bedroom, so things get unorganized VERY quickly. We also have another small room (we live in a two bedroom trailer, with a dinning room we use as our bedroom, the whole place has barely any closet/storage space…very tiny!) but I was not really sure what i wanted to do with that little room. I never would have thought of this and you just saved my OCD life. THANK YOU!!!
I’m super late to this party, but WOW! This is absolutely brilliant, and I think the reading nook makes it even more awesome. Cuddle up for story time while the clothes are in the wash. Brill.