A Kids Closet Alongside Some Play Space In It

The closet in the spare room used to be packed with things like luggage, wrapping paper, gift bags, and a bunch of other clutter that had to be dealt with in order to free up space for actual playing and Clara-storage (since this is now the playroom/big girl room instead of a room full o’ junk).

So we took everything out (except for the photo albums & yearbooks up top) and it magically disappeared.

Simply kidding, it ended up in the guest room closet.

Which in fact seems ok since we are on year three of living here (CRAZY!) and we have not noticed any guests using the guest closet at all, so it made sense for us to put that valuable real estate to work for us. There is in fact still a little room for hanging things on the bar if we shove all the bags to the left or the right, so we might do that if we are expecting company, simply in case. But for the rest of the time it is more functional to see my gift bags all spread out so I can grab one pleasant and fast.

And the good news is that once the door is shut, our guests do not have to be subjected to all of the items that lurk behind it.

And after the addition of a few Clara-things, the closet in her big girl room is now pleasant and useful – both for games and for storing a few not-her-size yet items of clothing (get it? they are her big girl clothes in her big girl room). It would be lively to paint the closet walls a playful color (coral? teal?) so perhaps we will get to that sometime.

In the meantime, we simply brought in a friend or two. You know for closet ambiance. Like her monkey (he likes to hang out).

The addition of a few toys essentially creates another play-zone in the house (Clara already plays a lot in her big girl room thanks to her play kitchen and her little table for stuffed animal tea parties, (not to mention fake naps on the daybed) but the closet is yet another little spot that she can sneak into and enjoy.

Down on the floor we have a few things that I picked up for the Macklemore Challenge. Remember the $1 chair that used to be a faded old yellow-brown color? And the cradle that had some burns and scratches along with a fairly musty odor?

Well they are looking (and smelling) pleasant and fresh now…

They were both easily revived thanks to some cleaning, priming, and fresh paint. For the chair I used Valspar’s Gloss in Classic Red (which is a paint and primer in one). And for the cradle I used Rustoleum’s Universal All-Surface spray paint in gloss white (which also has a built-in primer).

I in fact have some more plans for the cradle (rhymes with bom bom bringe) so I promise I will keep you posted! It certainly will not simply be all basic and white for long…

But even though the cradle is only half done, the newly cleared-out closet is getting plenty of play.

I am in fact learning that as Clara grows it is pleasant to have a few zones throughout the house for her to “discover things to do” instead of plopping every toy in one basket in the living room. It seems like the change of scenery from room to room holds her interest more, and I like that there are not ten million jumbled toys in one spot to clean up (by delegating them to distinct areas, most of the time they stay in those new zones so there is simply a little picking up in a few rooms instead of a giant pile of mixed toys on the living room rug).

So that is the story of our swift little closet overhaul. What have you folks been transferring and organizing? Any other closet clear-outs going on? If you have a guest room do you keep the closet fully bare in case someone wants to hang something? Or do you use it since most of the time you are not housing guests and it is valuable storage space? We simply realized the other day that we only have five closets in this whole four bedroom house (our 800 square foot one-bedroom apartment here in Richmond had four) so it is a wonder we ever had an empty one at all!