Teen Closet Re-do & the Art of the Clothes Roll

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One of the down sides to this house are the small closets in the boys’ rooms. At least at this stage in their lives they don’t have many clothes, but they do have plenty of “stuff”. Their rooms are also on the small side and only one of them has a dresser.

My 13 year old has the smaller room and chose to have a giant shelf instead of a dresser, so his clothing storage options are very limited. We’ve had a bookshelf in his closet for a while to give him a little more space but it was definitely time to upgrade his closet storage!

We chose to go with the Rubbermaid® HomeFree Series™ from Lowes. It’s expandable, customizable and adjustable (and required no cutting). I love that I can re-arrange the pieces or add on if needed. They have kits for closets 3-6 feet, 4-8 feet or 6-10 feet in length. We have the smallest one of course, but you can get a large kit and they work for reach in or walk-in closets. Just measure your closet space to see which one you need.

The online Rubbermaid® Storage Planner tells you exactly what you need for your size closet, making it perfect to print and take to the store. You can add and move to your heart’s content online and then print out your list so you’re armed and ready when you head to Lowes.

To start, we had to take out the existing shelf (which actually wasn’t too bad since it was already popping off) patch the holes and touch up the paint. Tip: always keep extra paint on hand, even if there isn’t much left. You won’t regret having it if you need it!Once the paint was dry we were ready to install! It’s pretty simple and went together rather quickly. Everything comes in the box so you don’t need any extra hardware, just your tools. The top rod goes on first followed by the verticals. Then the shelves or accessories clip in where ever you want.

The shelves and accessories are sturdy, but can be moved around after the fact which I LOVE. Right now he doesn’t have a ton of clothes but if he expands his wardrobe a bit I can re-arrange and add room for more hanging storage!

For the kids I’ve found that baskets and bins work great to keep them organized. Having more shelving space worked perfect for us since we already had him semi-organized in bins.  We used the Rubbermaid® HomeFree Series™ White Wood 3-Shelf Unit to store some clothes, hats and shoes. I love this Rubbermaid® HomeFree Series™ Beige Canvas Sliding Divided Bin Kit for his undershirts, boxers and socks. It’s MUCH easier finding what you need in here than in a deep basket. This is where perfecting the clothes roll helps my sanity. Early on I taught the boys how to roll their clothes. They couldn’t quite get the hang of folding them so we rolled them and it works out SO much better for drawers like this AND for packing a suitcase!

Start with your shirt upside down (so that when you roll it your design is on the outside)fold the sleeves in, for the least amount of wrinkles to deal with, fold it so your sleeves can lay flatroll from the bottomand you’re done!Sometimes when packing for travel they’ll roll outfits together. We do the same thing for boxers/underwear in their drawers and it just seems to hold better for them that way!

I love that his closet has room on the sides too. We can add some small vertical storage or have room for those long skinny things you can’t find a place for anywhere else.

The Here’s what the rest of his room looks like definitely helped us make more of this space for him. I’m thinking it would work well for all of our closets!

P.S. Here’s what the rest of his room looks like if you’re curious.