Kids Closet Ideas: How to Organize and Store Clothes in a Small Shared Bedroom

Are you looking for kids closet ideas to store and organize your kids’ clothes in a small, shared bedroom? If so, this post has some helpful, tried-and-true ideas that our family has implemented over the last four years.

We are a family of six, with four young kids that share a medium-sized bedroom. Our family lives in a rented, 650-square-foot, 2-bedroom cottage.

My philosophy when it comes to our home is that function is most important. And the aesthetic of how our home looks being a 2nd priority.

I do like to have a home that is visually appealing, but that comes secondary to the ease of accessibility, use, and maintenance for my family. Because clutter contributes to everyone’s stress levels!

I’m a big believer that creativity is an unlimited resource. And you don’t have to spend a fortune or invest in expensive closet storage systems to make a shared kids closet organized and functional.

In this post, I’m sharing how our family has used budget-friendly organization methods to implement a system of storage and organization in my kids’ closet. And this has empowered them to be as independent as possible in the areas of dressing and keep their room tidy.

The bottom line, though, is each home and family has to figure out what will work for them. So I’m sharing my kids closet ideas and hoping it will spark your creativity and problem solving to find solutions that work for you.

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Prioritizing Floor Space: Our #1 Hack for a Small Shared Bedroom for Kids

In our home, we try to prioritize keeping floor space open. This is so that the kids have as much room to play as possible.

We use bunk beds for our oldest two children. And we are looking into whether we can DIY a 3rd bunk onto the existing bunk bed for our three-year-old as well.

Currently, he sleeps on a cot-size mattress on the floor, which works great for him. He likes to be able to lift up the mattress, drag it outside to the deck or into the living room, or tip it on its side to create forts.

Our one-year-old sleeps in a pack-n-play, with some extra padding on the mattress to make it more comfortable. He usually sleeps in the kids’ room at night. But we typically move his bed into our flexible space sleep out (detached room off the end of our deck) during the day.

This allows him to sleep more soundly for naps. And it gives the kids’ room more floor space for daytime use as well. We homeschool our oldest two kids, which usually happens in our living/dining/kitchen common space. So it is handy to have bedroom space for our three-year-old to play independently sometimes while I’m working on schoolwork with the girls.

Since the floor space in the kids’ room is prioritized for beds and play area, we keep all the kids’ clothing in the kids closet right now.

We value giving the kids open space for them to set up doll homes or train tracks or dump out the Duplo basket. The kids also love to build forts and engage in imaginative play. Having the open space provides room for movement, and that helps keep the peace in our whole home!

Simple Kids Closet Ideas for Storing Clothes in a Small Shared Bedrooms

I have several kids closet ideas that form the basis of our clothing strategy for our three older children. They are:

1. Maintain a minimal wardrobe for our kids. Each child has about 10 outfit possibilities in their closet at a time. Since we usually do a full laundry cycle every day, 10 outfits are plenty to work with.
   
2. The closet becomes the clothing hub for the room, rather than dressers. This means that dressers aren’t taking up any floor space. And the bedroom’s floor space can be used for beds, bookshelves, and free play.
   
   It also means that there are fewer squished fingers in dresser drawers. More flexibility with storage configurations. And less expense, as open-storage methods are typically cheaper than closed storage methods.
   
3. Dirty clothes do not live in bedrooms. Since our home is small, it isn’t difficult to keep all dirty clothing in the dirty clothes basket under the washing machine in our bathroom. (The bathroom also serves as our utility room.)
   
   Whenever our kids change out of their dirty clothes, they put them directly into the start of the laundry cycle. This avoids stockpiling dirty clothes in a basket in the corner of their bedroom.

Video Tour of Our Shared Kids Closet and Clothing System:

If you’d like to see a video perspective of our kids closet and clothing system, I’ve got one on my youtube channel, and you can watch it here:

Shoe Racks: Functional Kids Closet Ideas to Maximize Space and Independence

One of the best kids closet ideas I’ve discovered is using a simple shoe rack as a shelving unit for baskets. It’s affordable, and our kids can easily reach what they need.

I measured the space in the closet available for a shoe rack. And then I hunted until I found a shoe rack that would fit both the depth and the width of space available.

I found a shoe rack with four shelves that is nothing special. It was at a discount store in town, and I think I paid about $20 for it.

It required some assembly, and honestly, it’s not going to last forever! The main structure is plastic pipes, and the shelves are a thin mesh. I found a shoe rack with four shelves that is nothing special. It was at a discount store in town, and I think I paid about $20 for it.

This one on Amazon looks very similar in size, and a bit more sturdy than the one I have!

But the one I got did fit the space, which was my top priority. Many kids closet ideas online suggest custom built-ins, but we needed something that could evolve as our kids grow. And something we could afford right now.

Since our home is rented and our family is ever-evolving, I prioritized what was inexpensive and would work well for now. I figured we’ll need to develop new systems and organization strategies as our children get bigger and older and their clothes grow!

And since we won’t live in this cottage for too many more years, we will likely need to be creative with kids closet ideas in the future. We will be working with different bedroom set ups down the road.

Bins and Baskets: Kids Closet Ideas That Don’t Require a Dresser

Our kids closet ideas include utilizing bins and baskets.

On the top shelf of the shoe rack, I keep two square cloth bins. These are the kind that can fold down flat, and typically fit into cube shelves.

One cloth bin holds our four kids’ puffy vests. Each child has a vest in their size.

The other cloth bin holds sweatshirts for our older three kids. These are the three that can independently reach their own clothes at this stage. Each child has 3 sweatshirts, and all 9 sweatshirts fit into the cloth bin.

Each of the other shelves on the shoe rack is designated for one child’s clothes. It has a large and small basket on it.

The larger basket on each shelf holds tops and bottoms. Typically this is long sleeve and long pants during the winter, and short sleeve and shorts during the summer.

The smaller basket holds undies. And each child has a handful of pair of socks that they like to keep nice and are for their own personal use. They often get socks as part of their birthday gifts or Christmas gifts.

On the bottom shelf, we have one more large basket dedicated to “collectively owned” socks. Our older three kids’ feet are all within a few sizes of each other right now. So we can get packages of socks that will work for all of them. Our children tend to run around in their socks and forget to put their shoes on a lot, so we keep a good supply of socks for play/everyday wear.

The kids don’t use pajamas, so I don’t need a spot for them. And we store all their swimwear in a cloth box in the cube shelf next to our front door. Shoes are kept in the entryway.

On the other side of the closet, we hang the kids’ rain jackets above where we store our vacuum machine. Their rain overalls are a bit longer, so they hang on a higher closet rod.

We also use S hooks to hang items from the closet racks as well, if needed. This is a cheap solution to utilizing the vertical space of the closet without needing to change anything structurally.

Currently, we have several S hooks in use in the closet. One is where we hang a drawstring bag for one of the kids. Another has the kids’ pop-out tunnel hanging in its case. And I also use an S hook in the back of the kids’ closet to store my collapsable photography reflector.

Command hooks are also a convenient, cheap, renter-friendly way to utilize vertical wall space. I don’t have any currently in use in the kids’ closet, but we do have command hooks on the end of the bunk bed where we hang their empty backpacks.

Organizational Value for a Shared Kids Closet Setup: Teaching and Encouraging Our Kids’ Independence

I wanted any kids closet ideas we implement have to encourage independence.

Back in our previous home, our girls shared a small room that was actually a utility/bonus room. Since there was no closet, we had a freestanding child’s clothing rack and baskets for our daughters’ clothes.

That system worked well for us, so we’ve just improvised and adapted to as we’ve gone along. This has included adding more children to the mix and moving into a slightly larger space with actual closets!

With this set up of a shoe rack and baskets for tops, bottoms, undies and socks, and low-hanging closet rods for some hanging items, our kids closet ideas support independence.

Each child can:

• Choose their outfit for the day. And since there aren’t huge amounts of clothes, they have a lot of choice but with some boundaries.
  
• Help with laundry by putting away their clothes. Both their own clothing as well as siblings’ clothing. Since laundry is a communal task in our home, we all share in the responsibility of getting our collective clothing through all steps of the laundry cycle.
  
• Understand where everything goes. Which means that when it comes time to clean up the bedroom or unpack from an overnight get away, everyone is equipped to help with tidying our home in this area of clothing and laundry.

This system results in our kids feeling capable and empowered to contribute to the household, even as toddlers. It helps them begin to understand the tasks and value of household management, and how if everyone contributes to household jobs, nobody feels overwhelmed.

And it provides real, valuable help to my husband and I as we oversee our home and keeping everyone clothed in clean clothing and our limited space tidy, organized, and enjoyable to be in!

The Baby’s Clothing Storage: A System that Evolves Over the First Few Years

Our fourth child just turned one, and he has only recently joined the other kids in the shared kids’ room. Prior to when he was sleeping through the night, the three older kids were in the smaller of our two bedrooms, and the baby was in the larger of the bedrooms with my husband and me.

I’m a big believer that you don’t need a bedroom dedicated as a nursery for a baby. You can make a baby nursery space creatively in nooks and crannies in a house.

The kids are now in that bigger room, so the baby’s clothes didn’t move, even when the rest of the family swapped bedrooms a few months ago.

Since our one-year-old can’t yet walk, we are still using the same clothing storage system that we did when he was first born.

The six containers I have are actually waste baskets, the kind that would be used for an office or dorm room. I was specifically looking for something that was narrow enough to fit on our shelves, and tall enough to make use of the vertical spacing of the shelves.

These baskets are exactly the dimensions I needed, and if I’d found them when I was shopping 3 years ago, I would have snagged them!

Tops, bottoms, and pajamas each go into one container. I use a fourth container for sweaters and sweatshirts. And the fifth for cloth diaper covers. The sixth used to be for swaddle blankets, but it is now repurposed to hold cardboard to start our wood stove.

This system allows for easy access to the baby clothes, no need to fold baby clothes, and our older kids can choose the baby’s outfits if they want or help put away the baby’s laundry.

Tips for Moms Creating a Storage System for their Shared Kids Closet

Now that you’ve seen what our family does, I hope you have some great ideas for developing or tweaking your kids’ closet to work for you! Remember, not all kids closet ideas need to be expensive or aesthetic. The best ideas are the ones that actually make your life easier!

Specifically, I’d suggest that you:

• Evaluate your specific space: no one-size-fits-all. Bust out your measuring tape and start taking measurements.
  
  I’d even suggest you write the measurements down on a sketched out “blueprint” of the space you’re working with so you can quickly see what would work in the available space.
  
• Start with what you have: is there anything you can repurpose or reuse? Things like shoe racks, book shelves, and cube shelves (which can stand vertically or be laid down horizontally) are versatile pieces of furniture that can adapt to a lot of different functions. Maybe you have one that isn’t fully being utilized that could work for clothing storage.
  
• Set a budget and stick to it. Although I know it can be tempting to just walk into Ikea or Target and get what you want brand new, your dollars really will stretch farther if you consider checking second hand shops, facebook marketplace, garage sales, or even places like the dollar store.
  
  And if you’re on a REALLY tight budget, you can get creative with cardboard boxes, a sharp knife, and duct tape. You can wrap them in inexpensive butcher paper or wrapping paper to achieve a uniform, more aesthetic look.
  
• Aim to make your system adaptable and growth-friendly. Your kids are going to be growing and changing, and ideally, you’re going to want a system that can evolve with kids’ ages, routines, and physical size. Try to create a system that allows for physical growth and changing routines.

You Can Thrive Where You Are!

I truly believe families can be happy in a small home. But, you do need smart systems!

Simple solutions that are designed around your specific family’s needs will function for you so much better than large, expensive, complicated options. Your kids closet ideas can work beautifully for you, they just need to be customized to YOUR needs.

A home, and especially a kids clothing storage system, don’t need to look perfect. They just need to work!

I hope you’ve found something helpful for you from this post. If you have, would you be willing to share it on Pinterest or via your social media account? It helps my blog gain visitors, and it also helps me know what kinds of content are resonating with my readers.

And I’d love to hear from you if you are going to try to implement something I’ve done or you’ve had a lightbulb moment of inspiration while reading this! Please drop me a comment and tell me about it, or share your favorite small space tip that you’ve implemented in your own home.

And if you enjoyed this post, you may also enjoy these other posts:

• How to Organize Kids Shoes in a Small Entry
• How to Make a Peaceful Evening Routine
• Benefits of a Shared Room: 5 Tips for How to Help Improve Your Kids’ Experience
• How to Make a Peaceful Morning Routine
• How to Cook From Scratch in a Small Kitchen

Or this video, with additional tips on how we help our kids share a room: