Kids' Bedrooms

Teenage Daughter's Room

Many closets come with a built-in shelving unit.  This one didn't so for about $10 we installed a plastic unit.  Bins on the unit hold smaller items together like socks, nylons, slips.

Hooks inside a closet door for jackets is a good way to use extra space.

 Scrapbook supplies are tucked neatly away in three-drawer bin sets under a desk.

Night stand. Little bins help organize the mass of lipgloss, bookmarks, lotions, pens and highlighters, church handouts, and friend notes.  Use labels if you find it hard to remember what goes where.  Another way to organized these small items is small plastic drawer units.

 Photo boxes hold projects in-process for this craft loving girl.

 For Christmas each year I buy myself a calendar with some kind of Christ-oriented paintings on it.  After saving these for several years our kids were able to choose their favorite Jesus prints and we framed them on their bedroom walls.  A wonderful site to see as they drift off to sleep.




 Tween Daughter's Room

 A few Jesus pictures on her wall.

Hooks inside a walk-in-closet.  Learn from my mistake and don't use these cheap garage hooks to hold jackets and bags.  They fall off too easily.  We'll probaby replace them someday.

Teenage Son's Room

Make good use of a smallish closet by using a shelving unit, shoe bag, laundry hamper, and bins.

 A bulletin board to help teenagers remember what matters most to them.

My son LOVES these three-drawer units.  He loves using them to organize his school stuff, scout stuff, church stuff, personal stuff, CD's, and so on.



Twin Sons' Room

A rule of thumb is that the easier you make it to do a task, the more likely people are to do it.  Take kids making their beds.  The top sheet usually ends up stuffed at the foot of the bed, and the covers are disheveled.  We've discovered a few tricks that make bed-making quick and tidy.

1) Buy a package of large safety pins (a size down from diaper pins) and pin the top sheet to the comforter and/or blanket(s).
2) Tightly tuck all the covers (top sheet, blanket, and comforter) on the bottom and the wall-side of the bed.  We buy comforters a size too big to accomodate tucking.
3) Teach your children to just grab the corner and pull it to the top corner of the bed.

 Inexpensive frames are a fun way for kids to display their own artwork.

Although we keep most kids' toys in a central toy area, we use some plastic bins under beds to hold special things like blankies and stuffed animals.

Each of the twins has their own half of the closet.  Hooks for jackets and backpacks, and shoe bags hang inside each closet door.  This son prefers to hang his clothes.  On the floor are bins for underwear, socks, pajamas, and shorts.  The box on the shelf are clothes they're growing into.  That's a good idea for any kid's closet, as well as a box of clothes they're growing out of, if you're saving the hand-me-downs for the next child down or for a neighbor.

His brother prefers bins for his clothes, so they're labeled with pictures of what goes where.  The top hanging bar is too high for them to reach, so we use it for their church clothes and Dad's army uniforms.

We utilize the top shelf of this closet by storing emergency kits.

We like http://www.realheroposters.com/ for inexpensive posters of scripture heroes, like Lehi with the fruit and Samuel the Lamanite on the wall, pictured here.  Then you can watch for 50% off sales on poster frames at craft stores.

Master Bathroom

I love this little row of hooks.  It's meant to hold keys, but I use it here to hold a hair dryer, flat iron, and curling iron.  I also love my swing arm mirror so I can see the back of my hair.  I like to use getting-ready-in-the-morning time to read quotes or memorize Articles of Faith, so I attach papers to my mirror. It works for me.  My sister-in-law Elisabeth inspired me by typing up a family mission statement and framing it on their wall, so I did that more recently for our family.  I hung it in the blank space on the right side, so I can read parts of it as I'm blow drying.  Multi-tasking at its best.

We are blessed to have two sinks, and have them be the tallish version.  My husband is all leg.  I'm not kidding. He's almost 6 feet tall, and I'm about 6 inches shorter than him, yet when we sit side-by-side I'm taller than him.  So he loves not having to bend so far. 

Anyway... I wanted to make the most use of the space under these two sinks that I could. My FAV under-bathroom-sink organizing tool is a set of clear plastic drawers.  These hold a stock of bathroom items like soap and shampoo.  The bin holds ironing supplies. Usually behind the bin is a mile-high stack of Costco toilet paper.  We must have been almost out.  Uh oh.

Under my sink are two sets of plastic drawers, holding things like pads, tampons, essential oils, and bath pampering items (I'll use them sometime I just know it).  Atop the drawers is a tackle box/craft box holding earrings and smaller necklaces.  I keep a bin of rags plus a bin of cleaners here.  Hooks behind the right door hold necklaces, and hooks on the left hold a little wire shelf.  Okay I confess I didn't like walking ALL THE WAY across the bathroom every morning when I needed a tissue to wipe mascara off my skin.  How do I manage to do that every morning??

Mom's bathroom drawer.  I used an office supply divided tray, plus some interlocking little bins.  The bin in the front needed to be really skinny so I custom made it from a Ziplok or Kleenex box.  The hair supplies in the back are used by my three youngins, so it never looks quite this clean.  That's okay.  I know I'll miss the messes when they grow up and move away.  Then I'll wish my hair supplies would get messed up by them again...

My man's bathroom drawer. I used a divided lunch food container, plus a couple other food containers.  Who says you can't mix and match food and shaving?

I am philisophically opposed to towel rods.  Just don't like 'em.  So I remove them every home I buy (okay we've only bought two).  Then we install a row of cute towel hooks.  If it's too hard to do, nobody is going to do it, so hanging a towel is 100 times easier on a hook than a rod. So it's a no brainer.   We use one hook for a floor towel, plus one holds our fingernail and toenail clippers, so they can always be found.  Well, almost always... 

The master bathroom came with a jetted tub (never had one of those before) but guess who uses it?  Hint: it's not me.  It's not my husband.  Yep, it's the three youngins.  They have enjoyed MANY hours of relaxing, fun, overabundant bubbles, and prunish fingers in that tub.  Which is why I installed a row of hooks just for the kids' towels right above our tub.  They each have an assigned hook so it's easy to tell whose towel is left out. 

Have I mentioned I like hooks?  Okay, just checking.  We use hooks behind the bathroom door to hold his n' hers robes.  Isn't that romantic? We love to snuggle in the winter on the sofa wearing these cozy things.

Kids Bathrooms

Space under bathroom sinks isn't the most user-friendly.  Help it out with a couple bins or a set of clear plastic drawers.  We use bins here to store extra bathroom supplies like shampoo and soap, plus one for cleaners. Toilet paper stacks high in the back.

A teenage son's bathroom drawer.  Looks pretty good, eh?  He keeps it clean himself. I'm impressed.

Teenage girl's drawer.  It's amazing how well a few bins and an inexpensive cutlery tray keep things like this tidy and easy to find.  A tiny craft box with dividers holds ear rings.

Another teenage girl bathroom drawer.  The bins make all the difference.

Looks like a mass of cords.  But she can find what she needs in the mornings.  That's what matters.  And I'd rather have that mass of cords inside a drawer than all over the counter top.  So this is a good mass.

My two teenagers need to arrive at school anywhere between 6 am and 8 am, depending on the day, so can you guess why this clock is in the bathroom?

This is the only photo of the bathroom our three youngins share.  They each have their own drawer holding tooth supplies.  Needs to be cleaned, doesn't it?  I can see the toothpaste globs from here...  A bin for cleaning supplies and rags makes cleaning easy.  Again, toilet paper gets stacked high behind everything else (when it is well stocked).