Re-organizing Anneliese’s Room

I took these pictures last week of Anneliese’s room (well not the whole room; just the dresser and closet) “as is”… I didn’t clean things up or make them more organized or neat first.

Her dresser used to be super-organized. But then it got less organized. You know how it goes. Originally I was going to have half of it be Joey’s and half be Anneliese’s. But since Joey is staying in our bedroom for a while (until co-sleeping doesn’t work for us anymore), he’s sharing my dresser instead.

The top row of drawers: 1) pajamas, 2) “little stuff” like nail clippers, hair brush, etc, and hats 3) diapers and training pants, and 4) diaper inserts in the last drawer.

The next drawers had: Left — Accessories for Joey for when he’s a bit bigger. Hats, ties, socks, shoes, suspenders. Right — lots and lots of panties for Anneliese (those little “diaper cover”/bloomers things that come with dresses…they make great panties!). And her bathing suit.

The bottom drawers had: Left — Nothing. This is where Joey’s current-size clothes were before I moved them to my room. Right — socks and leg warmers for Anneliese.

Then there’s her closet. Because of the dumb sliding doors (Does anyone actually like doors like this? they’re on this closet, the office closet, and the pantry in the kitchen. Ugh.) the right side is more accessible than the left, so we mostly use that side.

Along the top shelf, there were plastic “shoebox” boxes full of clothes for Joey when he gets bigger, separated by size. Most of the boxes were over-full or had clothes piled on top too. As you can see, the left side of the closet was pretty empty.

The right side had Anneliese’s dresses, some empty baskets and a basket of jackets, and on the floor — books, a pillow, and blankets.

This morning I got to work on all of this a bit, because Joey was having a great nap in the cosleeper and Anneliese was in a good mood. Now the dresser is mostly empty (the top drawers are the same as they were before, but the rest are empty), and the closet has lots of baskets.

The top shelf still has future-Joey clothes by size, this time in baskets. None are overflowing (I separated out some things to donate if a size had too much stuff). There’s also a basket of Anneliese’s clothes to save for her for later — things from my childhood, things from my husband’s side of the family, or clothes I made for her.

The middle shelf now has all of those accessories in baskets. The left side has Joey’s things (ties/suspenders, socks, hats, shoes), and the right has Anneliese’s (jackets, panties, socks, leg warmers).

The floor of the closet is pretty much the same, though I plan to move the blankets to one of the dresser drawers.

I’m not sure what I’ll do with the other ones. Someone on Instagram suggested storing baby carriers in a drawer. I have a basket in the living room for them, but it’s overflowing. I may keep my go-to carriers in the basket and others in a drawer.

At this point, Anneliese has ZERO shirts and shorts/pants/skirts. She only has dresses so that makes storing her clothes easy. Later on, Joey will have more/bigger clothes too, and his things will be moved out of my room eventually. Sooooo… this isn’t a permanent shuffle. It’ll change again in a few months. But for now I think it’s moving in the right direction.

I’ll have to update again when I have it closer to the way I want it.

Till then, any suggestions or ideas?