1 Family in a 1 Bedroom House: Closet Makeover inspired by Hangers

My original plan for the 1 Family in a 1 Bedroom House series was to show what we've be able to do so far to maximize the space we live in room by room. 

But then I realized that'd be done in 3-4 posts and then it'd be over. Or I'd have to then do repeats of whole rooms later when we improved a space. So I wasn't really sure where to go with that. 

And then I had an idea. Actually, Cameron had an idea. I have to give credit where credit is due. He suggested that rather than try and show an entire room (and waiting to show a room until I felt like we'd done enough in it to merit a full post), to show spaces. 

Genius!

This way we can work on our house bite by bite, rather than trying to "makeover" one room all at once. So the series will take a shift, and I think it will be for the better. The original idea remains to share ideas on how we use our space, but now in smaller chunks I'm hoping it will motivate me to keep improving on our space usage and efficiency, and it definitely will create more blog content than just the 4 posts it originally would have spread over. 

So today you get installation #2 of the 1 Family in a 1 Bedroom House series! And I'm not taking you anywhere new...sorry. Back to our family bedroom! 

You saw a brief glimpse of our closet in the video showcasing the ginormous bed (which we LOVE!), and a quick picture...but that was it. It was enough though to show how packed it was and how chaotic it looked. 

A friend saw that post and decided for Christmas that we needed some help with it, and we're so grateful! Her sweet gift has made such a difference! 

I tackled the closet yesterday to use her gift and to reorganize it, and I'm so happy with the outcome. We still have a little work to do, but it is a million times better already. 

Here's how it looked when I went in to start. Eek. 

You've gotta love the chunky plastic hangers from Walmart that come in a huge pack for cheap. Cheap. That's why we had those! And because I really didn't realize how much of a difference good hangers make. I now know!

Our friend gave us a few sets of Joy Mangano's Huggable Hangers sets. These are amazing! And they make our closet look so much more grown up and nice! I started by switching out as many of our hanging clothes as we had Huggable Hangers for. That alone improved things some!

There was already more room just with that change, but I decided to take it further. I took our 2-3 t-shirts we each had and put those in our pants drawers. Neither of us are big t-shirt wearers (long torsos just look a little funny in most regular t-shirts), so we don't have many and figured they didn't need to hang. So that cleared up 7 hangers.

Next I went through and I pulled out all of my clothes that my baby belly doesn't fit in (or won't soon) right now and put those in my "when I'm not pregnant" box of clothes. Finally I went through and pulled out shirts neither of us had worn since we moved there and put them in a box to take to Savers this weekend. That cleared up A LOT more space!

And the plastic hanger carnage lay on the bed in a testament of the battle waged. Guess how many there are.

I guessed 40ish. Wrong! 105! That's absolutely ridiculous! Or as Darrow says, "Dico-wus!" Too many hangers, too many clothes. We're slowly getting closer to a basic wardrobe (capsule style-ish) that isn't more than we really need.

I love how sturdy these hangers are, and how the clothes stay on them so well! So many of my shirts would slip off the plastic hangers, but they stick really well to these new hangers! And I love the "Joy" logo printed into each hanger. I know that's the creator's name, but what a good reminder to see every single day! Make each day joyful!

And that's where it ended. For a few hours. But the closet kept gnawing at my mind. I was sure I could do even more. Along with 2 sets of the hangers were clips to add on that allow you to hang hangers from hangers, utilizing vertical space. With the way all the boxes were in the bottom of the closet at first I thought I wouldn't be able to use them, but I pulled everything out, rearranged, added the vertical hanging clips, and it all fits so much better now!

Once it gets closer to B-Day (Baby Day, Birth Day, etc), we'll pull the bassinet out of the storage room and then there will be room to put that Herhsey's box (full of my childhood journals) and the green crate of picture frames in the storage room. So until then it's still not as picturesque as we'd like, but it is so much better!

I'll need to order one more set of these hangers* for spring when the cold stuff gets packed in that blue crate and for when I can pull out my favorite dresses and shirts from the "when I'm not pregnant" box. But for now this is absolutely perfect! And, it gave us enough space that I could move the blue tote into the closet and free up space out in the room!

*If you're interested in these hangers you can find the exact ones here (not an affiliate link), or on Amazon there are similar Set of 50 Ultra Thin No Slip Velvet Suit Hangers here (that one is an affiliate link).  

I think the next step in the closet now will be to make or buy a big curtain to hang in there. We're hoping that will make the room look a little more tidy if you can't see everything crammed in there. But, that's another day and another post!