How far apart to put wardrobe shelves? usage advice?!

seeker

Fri, Feb 13 2015, 1:40 am

Just built an Ikea Pax in my bedroom. To be used mostly for clothes but some other stuff will probably end up in there because it should be (I hope!) more than big enough for our wardrobe. I have one unit with hanging bars and one that has drawers on bottom and shelves on top. I know obviously this is individual and depends what you want to do with it, but does anyone know what standard/ideal spacing between shelves might be? What items are best stored in wardrobe shelves? Can put bins/boxes on the shelves too, but not sure what should go where. I've only ever had a dresser with drawers in the past, which was woefully insufficient so that's why we upgraded but now I'm not even sure how to use my new storage! Is this embarrassing or what? Need to decide which space should be for who/what, with one wide, shallow closet to be shared between DH (mostly socks and underwear with some miscellany), me (same, plus feminine articles, sweaters, and more nightwear and such but some can stay in the other dresser we still have) and 2-year-old DD (everything, those sterilite drawers were a pain) Would love to have space left over for a little household storage too.

Anyway I need to put up those shelves and start filling them because the former contents of the discarded dresser have been in shopping bags on the floor for a week already. Advice please!

seeker

Sat, Feb 14 2015, 8:49 pm

Thanks for all the advice, Rubber Ducky! Are you a professional organizer?

The shelves are sort of adjustable - they can be moved but I'm pretty sure the pegs would wear out if moved too many times, they are plastic and anchored with screws. Not sure if they sell replacements for people who mess them up. They came with the shelves.

I'll be spending some time sleeping on top of partially organized clothes, but that's partly because I need to get out and buy containers. They all seem so expensive online and I don't have a good store for that right near me, so I'll have to GO get some. Been meaning to do this for many things.

What does "items that should be kept in containers" include? Sorry, I really am a dunce about this. I am so messy and disorganized currently; making a little progress but I don't have experience with knowing what things should be in what.

So you think we should separate people's things from left to right? I'd been thinking more along the lines of one drawer per person for starters, and then figure out what else is needed. Higher shelves for DH because he's taller... I dunno. Very bottom and very top for out of season/storage. Maybe move all the kids' stuff to the old dresser and all of my stuff to the new one just to make things simpler because right now we each have some stuff in different places. Though maybe the new one makes more sense for the kids because it's not as deep and their stuff is smaller. See, now I'm confused. A professional would be a great idea but I just don't see it happening right now. I wouldn't even know how to find one or when to find time for it, and I'm not sure I want to know how much they charge.

seeker

Sat, Feb 14 2015, 9:40 pm

Well, the task at hand now is 90% clothes. I think we all basically know what clothes are...
Me: Currently about one and a half old-dresser drawers of sweaters and tops (which are not *quite* fitting into that one drawer but let's not go there), a bunch of underwear, socks, tights/hose. Some pajama-wear. A small amount of seasonal stuff like bathing suit. A little jewelry that I do have a holder for but always ends up in a jumble instead anyway. Bobby pins and pony holders. Handful of old letters and cards that I'm not willing to get rid of (pretty good about throwing this type of thing away, just a few have real staying power), spare glasses, hair iron that I rarely use but again not going to throw out because I have used it to touch up a sheitel once in a while. A whole bunch of tichels and a few snoods/pretieds. That's really about all, I think.
DH: lots of undershorts, undershirts, socks. Much more odds n ends than me - several old pairs of glasses, what looks like lots of papery bits, assorted hand/skin creams, glasses cleaning cloth, maybe one set of cufflinks and a tie clip, I don't even know what else but I do recall that when emptying out our old smaller dresser he had one entire (small, but entire) drawer with no clothes but full to the top with this stuff. Some of it made the trash on the way out but most didn't.
DD#1 Has one very large, very shallow, very disorganization-prone drawer under her toddler-size bed where we keep clothes that I trust her to pick out herself (shirts that can be mix-n-matched with pretty much any skirt, underwear, pajamas) and her projects and treasures. I have labeled each section of the drawer with pictures and words but with a role model like me she totally does not get the concept of putting things in their places. I need to get some kind of organizer to keep the areas separate and then maybe work harder on the teaching angle. Then in my dresser she has some sweaters and assorted things that didn't fit in her drawer - tops that are suitable only for arts-n-crafts/non-school days, shells/undershirts, more tights, some socks, leggings. And OMG hair things, these are taking over our house, WHAT do you do with about a dozen headbands? And I have a little container for clips and pony-holders but they always escape. Argh.
DD#2 Formerly everything was in a 3-drawer Sterilite unit, which worked great when she was a baby despite the clumsy proportions, but now her wardrobe is bursting out of it. She has a lot of shirts, a lot of pants and skirts (tiny little toddler things, mostly not wrinkly, not worth hanging), a few onesies/undershirts, a few sets of pajamas, dresses/jumpers I moved to the closet already, and a whole lot of itty bitty little toddler sized panties and socks that should certainly be contained somehow.
Miscellany cluttering up the top of dresser and overflowing and avalanching and needs to be contained: Little box containing lubricants and such, sheitel box (used on average maybe once a month or less. I'm a tichel person but also believe in "when in Rome"), vaseline, hand cream, hairbrushes, deodorant, and a constant rotation of STUFF Sad

Elsewhere I have plenty more that needs organizing but I think I have piled on enough for one imamother post Tongue Out

Better not to get started and stay in the bedroom for now. SIGH.

Rubber Ducky

Sat, Feb 14 2015, 11:06 pm

...ME: Currently about one and a half old-dresser drawers of sweaters and tops (which are not *quite* fitting into that one drawer but let's not go there), a bunch of underwear, socks, tights/hose. Some pajama-wear. A small amount of seasonal stuff like bathing suit. A little jewelry that I do have a holder for but always ends up in a jumble instead anyway. Bobby pins and pony holders. Handful of old letters and cards that I'm not willing to get rid of (pretty good about throwing this type of thing away, just a few have real staying power), spare glasses, hair iron that I rarely use but again not going to throw out because I have used it to touch up a sheitel once in a while. A whole bunch of tichels and a few snoods/pretieds. That's really about all, I think.
Throw out/give away clothes you don't wear.
Try drawer dividers such as these for separating clothing: http://smile.amazon.com/OXO-Ex.....Q5EQ4
What kind of holder are you using for jewelry? Would something like this help? http://smile.amazon.com/dp/B005DZ32ZM?psc=1
Cards/letters can be stored in a small box, in a small accordion file, or in pocket pages in a binder.
Hair stuff all together; a small plastic box with dividers (like for craft supplies) may work.
Either group the tichels in their own drawer section, put in a container, or hang them up: http://smile.amazon.com/dp/B00.....35Q26

DH: lots of undershorts, undershirts, socks. Much more odds n ends than me - several old pairs of glasses, what looks like lots of papery bits, assorted hand/skin creams, glasses cleaning cloth, maybe one set of cufflinks and a tie clip, I don't even know what else but I do recall that when emptying out our old smaller dresser he had one entire (small, but entire) drawer with no clothes but full to the top with this stuff. Some of it made the trash on the way out but most didn't.
Small Sterilite drawer sets may work for the glasses stuff, jewelry, creams... You (or better, your DH) will have to sort the stuff into categories. After putting in little drawers, label the drawers. I use a Brother label machine to label shelves and drawers. It looks more official that way and increases the chances the areas will be used as intended. I'm not sure what the "papery bits" are. Papers/receipts needed for financial stuff do well in accordion files by date.

I'm out of time to continue a long response here, will try to add to this tomorrow.

seeker

Sat, Feb 14 2015, 11:38 pm

Thanks for all the great ideas, Rubber Ducky!

I can probably throw away some more clothes, but I don't really own that much in the first place. Anything I throw away should really be replaced; some of my clothes are past their prime but I don't have other things to wear instead. I never thought of myself as having too much clothes, to be honest.

I don't have enough jewelry to bother with a big wall hanging thing. I don't wear it all the time either. I prefer to keep it inside something so it doesn't get ruined from being out. The real problem is that when I take it off I am too lazy to put it away properly, hence the jumble in the front of my drawer.

The back of our bedroom door and coat closet door are already occupied by a shoebag full of... shoes. Why do 4 people have enough shoes to fill two shoebags? That's a different question. I don't see myself as having tons of shoes, is this average?

So let's say I put my cards and letters in a small box, now THAT needs someplace to go. It's not really taking up less space than lying flat under/between my shirts...

Small sterilite drawer set for DH's odds and ends is a GREAT idea! Wonder where I can buy one on the cheap (between all the bits and pieces and odds and ends this reorganizing project is costing a fortune. The accessories and containers and such are adding up to almost as much as the closet itself. Yeesh.)

"papery bits" includes pieces of mail that were never dealt with, terms of his credit card and things like that, receipts, checkbook, sentimental cards/letters/stuff, cards he bought on sale after last valentine's day and has been giving me gradually when I get upset at him (yes, I'm on to this Wink

)

I think basically we all want a lot of drawer space but what we have is half drawers, half shelves because at a certain height you can't reach drawers easily anyway. So what we really need is some idea of what is better kept on shelves. I guess the papery things (in appropriate papery holder), a mini-drawer thing or two for odds n ends, and... what? Maybe the 2-year-old's socks and panties can be moved to shelf bins? And maybe a bin for the headbands can go on a shelf? But the kids like to reach those independently. Which is probably part of the problem.

Rubber Ducky

Sun, Feb 15 2015, 10:52 pm

Today I spent the afternoon at a client designing a pantry to be built by a carpenter, figuring out what should go where, and measuring things like ketchup bottles and aluminum foil baking trays. But now you have my attention!

I don't have enough jewelry to bother with a big wall hanging thing. I don't wear it all the time either. I prefer to keep it inside something so it doesn't get ruined from being out. The real problem is that when I take it off I am too lazy to put it away properly, hence the jumble in the front of my drawer.
Then a small drawer set with dividers could work on a shelf, like this: http://smile.amazon.com/Steril.....nizer
or this, which I own, very useful: http://smile.amazon.com/Steril.....nizer

The back of our bedroom door and coat closet door are already occupied by a shoebag full of... shoes. Why do 4 people have enough shoes to fill two shoebags? That's a different question. I don't see myself as having tons of shoes, is this average?
How many pairs of shoes are we talking about?

So let's say I put my cards and letters in a small box, now THAT needs someplace to go. It's not really taking up less space than lying flat under/between my shirts...
OK, I hear that.

Small sterilite drawer set for DH's odds and ends is a GREAT idea! Wonder where I can buy one on the cheap (between all the bits and pieces and odds and ends this reorganizing project is costing a fortune. The accessories and containers and such are adding up to almost as much as the closet itself. Yeesh.)
Target carries a lot of these.

...I think basically we all want a lot of drawer space but what we have is half drawers, half shelves because at a certain height you can't reach drawers easily anyway. So what we really need is some idea of what is better kept on shelves. I guess the papery things (in appropriate papery holder), a mini-drawer thing or two for odds n ends, and... what? Maybe the 2-year-old's socks and panties can be moved to shelf bins? And maybe a bin for the headbands can go on a shelf? But the kids like to reach those independently. Which is probably part of the problem.
Yes, the socks and panties can go in containers.
Your folded sweaters and shirts can go on shelves if they're currently in drawers..
There are a lot of good crafty-type holders for hair accessories. Many of them can be hung on the wall. Here's an example (look at the 5th from top): http://www.itsoverflowing.com/.....ders/

seeker

Mon, Feb 16 2015, 1:07 am

Wonder if I can find a dollar-store version of those Sterilite mini-drawer sets. They do look handy but at $10-15 apiece... gosh all this stuff adds up so fast because each handful of junk needs its own container... good incentive to get rid of more junk but a lot of it is good junk and my kids have reached that age where they notice their treasures and you can't throw out any garbage without signed executive orders in triplicate. And even then you could get in trouble the next day. Yknow?

How many pairs of shoes... well actually I noted we do seem to have some empty slots in our shoebags, but that may be because things are in use/not put away, and also just a few empty slots isn't really enough to put to much alternative use. Each of 2 DD's has one main pair of shoes, one set of crocs, and maybe a second backup pair if their old shoes still fit, it's sneaker/sandal season, etc. So that's about 6 pairs between 2 DD's. DH has a shabbosdik pair, 2 weekday pairs, one sneakers, one crocs but they're never in the shoebag, I think that's it. So that's like 4-5 pairs of shoebag holes for the DH. I'm a bit more complicated because it's super hard to find shoes that fit comfortably so I really take my time throwing out old ones since I know how hard they will be to replace! Mainly I have 1-2 sneakers, 1 comfy weekday shoes, 2 more formal pairs, and 2 pairs of Shabbos shoes that are neither comfortable nor stylish but I can't throw them out because I have nothing else, and a couple of weekday shoes that I could say the same except those I really should throw out because I have some better options. So make that 6 pairs for me, plus 2-3 that are currently occupied but should really go. Fair?

I did a TON of organizing today, leaving me feeling wiped out and somewhat accomplished but a little discouraged by how much still remains to be done after spending about 6 hours of my precious life doing little else. I'm ready to move to a dirt hut with no physical possessions. This is ridiculous. Anyway, what I'm trying to say is that:
~ I put my paper things (cards, letters, etc) that were in my drawer into a plastic envelope thing, which is larger than any of the papers so they should probably be redone in a more appropriate holder at some point but at least they're kinda collected.
~ I installed one closet shelf at a height that is a little random but the first easy slot (I.e. no need to dremel it down to fit around the hinges like I did for the bottom one to cover the top drawer), put all my sweaters/t-shirts stacked on that shelf, and installed another shelf a couple of inches above that (then promptly found some more sweatery things to go there, making it a little squished in some places, and making me think I may have misjudged in saying that I don't have too many tops. Maybe I do. But the ones most likely to go are also the warm ones and it's cold, so I'm thinking they need to be replaced instead of discarded)
~ I put the drawer dividers into one of the drawers (found out that they only fit the IKEA closet drawers, too high for my old drawers and I don't know if cutting them down would work but maybe I should try) and sorted my underwear, socks, tights, and tichels into them. Loved how much I could fit this way and still be neat, between the drawers being deeper and the dividers (and some purging) I was able to fit about 2 old-drawers' contents into one new-drawer (then, again, realized that after the laundry comes out I will have a squishing problem and some beautifully arranged items will have to move somewhere else, not sure yet where)
~ Having moved my tops to a shelf, I filled their former drawer with DD2's clothes from the sterilite drawers. Did not use drawer divider because they didn't fit. Will have to label everything but still not very optimistic about it being kept in order. Two piles of shirts, one pile pants, one pile skirts, one pile warm-weather-wear, one pile PJs, and because the drawers are deep (front-to-back, not top-to-bottom) the nicer things for special occasions are in back for only Mommy to access.
~ Found three unused small, shallow rectangular containers. Put DD's panties in one, socks/tights in another, and other DD's socks in the third. Found that DD2 has many more socks and tights than I realized. I will need another container and place to put it. Meanwhile these containers are lined up in DD1's drawer which was not so full in the first place, just looked full due to disorder and headbands. Moved headbands to one of my IKEA containers and placed on closet shelf because that's where those things fit.
~ Emptied the surface of my dresser and my top cluttered drawer. Lots of this stuff is still on my bed but at least the dresser looks great embarrassed

Collected bobby pins, safety pins, etc in a deodorant cap and replaced in top drawer. Collected those papery things and put the envelope thing back in the drawer. Put jewelry back in my current jewelry holder so that's looking good for now though they will probably come apart again one of these days. Cleaned out an empty can, put electrical tape over the edge to make sure it's not sharp, and put hairbrushes standing up in there (on top of dresser) so they can stop slipping around all over. Yes I need all those brushes, I'm sure even with a home they will continue to escape - just now they have a place to come back to where they won't be falling over something and more easily findable. Some shirts had been in there and moved to shelves so overall that drawer is emptier now and not as badly in need of organization for the moment.

So basically I have been doing a ton of organizing and putting things places, but a complete fail on keeping the same people's things together, which probably means that it will all fall apart soon. I am not sure what to do about this because I am sticking things where they fit, which isn't always where they are convenient. Need to buy better containers for kid socks and possibly move these things to a closet drawer because the closet drawers are deeper and can actually fit practical containers, but that would make the same people's stuff even MORE spread apart. Do I just resign to this and move on? (I can't move on yet, I still have an embarrassingly large bag of assorted bedroom dumpings to go through. Some are outgrown clothes to be sorted/donated/stored, some I don't even know what else...) (PS I can't move on because I am so burnt out from spending all day on this &%$# annoying but necessary project, so no matter how much the rest of my home organization wants to get done, I am going to spend tomorrow baking and doing arts n crafts with the kids.)