I got a glimpse of what life might be like in a few weeks after the boys’ room is finished and Everett moves in with Layne.  While we were on vacation this past week, all 4 of us shared a hotel room.  I practically had to pry Everett off the queen beds to put him to sleep in his Pack-N-Play.  Once in the Pack-N-Play, Everett proceeded to pester Layne…”Way-een.  Way-een.”  (Everett can’t pronounce his L’s yet.)  To which Layne repeatedly replied, “Everett go to sleep.  I don’t even want to talk to you.” 

Even though having a roommate may take a while to get use to, I think Everett is totally ready for a Big Boy Bed.  Now, I just have to get their room in order…the bedroom that has been solely Layne’s up until now.  My first step was to establish a functional furniture layout.  I quickly realized that Layne’s space-hogging (and broken) dresser would have to leave to make room for a second twin bed.  You can see the homeless dresser here in the middle of the room…the new twin platform bed is mattress-less just beyond the dresser…

I figured I would put all the clothes that were in the dresser in the large closet.  (Luckily, all of our bedrooms have walk-in closets.)  Then I opened the closet door…

Apparently, this is what happens when you let a 5-year-old have total control of their closet…chaos.  I’m not gonna lie; I’m a little embarrassed by it.  Nothing was hanging on the hangers except for Layne’s snowsuit.  Everything else was piled on the floor as a makeshift wrestling ring.  Those boys love to wrestle each other – it’s more wallowing than wrestling though.

The shelves were holding empty – yes, empty – boxes that just needed to be taken out to the recycling bin but somehow have managed to go overlooked for 2 years!  Layne’s old bed rail was propped against the wall.  The toy box loomed large but didn’t hold any toys.  (We keep toys organized and hidden away in our living room and playroom/guest room.)  Take notice that NO CLOTHES (other than the snowsuit) were in the closet.  It had really turned into The Black Hole.  A place where unused items got tossed and never seen again.  And it got my organizational mind racing.  Before I could even start to think about a furniture layout, I would have to get this closet in order. 

Since the dresser was leaving the bedroom, I decided the majority of the boys’ clothes should be kept in the closet…minus socks, underwear and PJ’s…which could be stored easily somewhere else.  *Stay tuned.*  Along with their clothes, I wanted to move a small, low bookcase from the bedroom into the closet to act as a reading nook.  (My boys LOVE their books.)  I mentioned my idea to Layne and he was excited about having a cozy little book nook.  So, I got busy emptying the closet…while Layne took pictures of Everett.  (You can see me over in the right corner separating clothes.  The small bookcase is in the lower left-hand corner of the pic.)

When the closet was finally empty, I thought it needed painted.  However, I was soooo ready to organize that I didn’t want to take down the shelving to paint.  So, I concocted a plan to paint around the shelving.  Call it haste, laziness, resistance, half-assing…call it what you will…I like to think of it as ingenuity.  I painted such that a bare stripe was left around the shelving.

And to make it a little more like “it was supposed to be that way”, I extended the stripe all the way around the closet onto the shelfless walls.

Then came the task of sorting, folding and putting away all the boys’ clothes.  Luckily, my kiddos don’t have a lot of clothes.  (It keeps me on top of my laundry!)  They especially don’t have a lot of dress clothes so I opted for hanging organizers (from Lowe’s) to keep ’em folded in.

I brought in the bookcase but still need to recover the hand-me-down tie-dyed bean bag that Nanny Lina donated to my project.

For added storage, I hung a fabric organizer on the back of the closet door.

So far so good.  I still have some tweaking to do in the closet but, at least, now I’m able to move some furniture around in the bedroom!  The layout is coming along nicely and I’ll share it soon.