My husband and I have been thinking about having our closet done.  At first, we thought, maybe something like this:

But then, we decided we didn’t want to sell one of our boys to pay for it.  Also, we don’t have nearly that much space.  That’s more like the size of our bedroom, bathroom, and closet combined.  So, we thought about this:

But then, I started thinking, which is always a bit dangerous.  And, as I was thinking, I thought, maybe the problem isn’t really with the closet.  Maybe it’s with the ever-expanding piles of stuff inside of it.

(Haaaa!  You thought I had a picture of THAT?  Sorry.  I wish I did, but I forgot to take one, so you’re stuck with imagining the shoes, boxes, toy snakes, kites, and other random items that found their way in there.)

Instead of taking a wheelbarrow of money to Lowe’s, I suggested that we start by emptying the entire closet.  This took much longer than it should have.  Seriously.

And, empty, it doesn’t look too bad.

Then, we made two purchases.

Wicker baskets, from Target:  

and a skinny dresser, also courtesy of Tar-jay.

We dumped at least half of the clothes, toys, random papers, and old socks that were cluttering the space.

We grouped clothes by use (casual, dressy) and color.  (Okay, I did that.  He just sorted the jeans and khakis, and hung all of his shirts back up.)  It’s like a whole new place in there.  Amazing! 

And—better yet—we didn’t even have to sell a boy to fund it.