The pre-teen bedroom

In the past few months every time I would post about home organization my best friend would text me… COME DO MY HOUSE!! The end of summer is coming fast and as soon as fall hits she is crazy busy as a family photographer so I knew we were running out of time. Little girl and I packed up the car and made a quick trip to Austin to clean-out and organize her daughter Sami’s room.

When she sent me original pics of the room I thought, I can’t wait to get this amazing girl organized for her new school year! I called my friend ahead of time and said ok we are driving in so you need to pull everything out of the closet and have your daughter go through her clothes and ask her these questions:

1. Does it fit?
2. Is the item in good condition (no holes or stains)?
3. If you were shopping today would you buy it?

If the answer is yes then put it in the keep pile, if you have a no on any of these questions it goes in the take away piles. You will have two take away piles:

• Donate-These are the items that don’t fit or are not in style but are still in good condition.
•  Throw Away-These are the items that have holes, stains, excessively used shoes and underwear.

When we arrived most of the closet was cleaned out and they already had at least 7 take away bags and the pile of “keep” clothes ready.

I knew that we were not going to have time to run around town buying supplies so I brought with me a few things that I knew we would need to get started. First was a 100 pack of slimline hangers from Amazon for $39.99 for 100 these are the best deal that I have found especially when you are switching out an entire closet.

Next was this White Elfa Mesh start a stack system is PERFECT for closets (we have 5 in our home) grab the medium white melamine top so clothes can brush the top of it without disturbing the top drawer. I also picked up the clear divided tray to slip into the top drawer so we could get rid of a few of the jewelry boxes that she had on the desk.

This is where the shoes from the door ended up. I love this system with kids because they can just throw them into the baskets, close it up and it looks neat and organized. We also placed a few of her need to grab daily items on the top so they stay in the closet out of sight.

Next we started loading clothes back in! I do a simple system that in our home everyone has been able to follow pretty easily and it makes getting dressed a breeze! Categorize by type of item then group by color- so Sami’s closet ended up with dresses and long items on one side, jackets and sweaters on the opposite and in the middle her tanks, tees and long sleeve. In each of these three sections it was then grouped by color, take a look at how her tops ended up.

Let’s be honest we would have loved to raid The Container Store and purchase all fancy new linen storage boxes, but this is real life so we used what she already had and grouped the pink and purple bins that were in the best shape. In these we stored things that she doesn’t use that often like hats/scarves, doll clothes, dress-up clothes, hair bows and dolls. I used oval chalkboard labels that I love from The Container Store, punched a hole and used mini carabiners (similar kind here) that they already had to label each bin. These slipped in perfectly on her top shelves while still leaving room for extra memory storage boxes above it.

We moved the storage bookcases from inside the closet to replace the desk that she doesn’t use to give her more storage areas of things she wants to keep like squishes and slime but mom does NOT want to see. I grabbed two of these Poppin 2×2 Storage Cubes from The Container Store because they are very sturdy and I love the silicone handle but here are a ton of options you can grab from Amazon. We needed at least four more of these but we ran out of time and I had to head home the next day!

Finally we accessorized with pretty items like the light up mirror and flowers from Home Goods to make this pre-teen’s room feel less little girl and more like the young woman she is!

I forgot to take pictures of some of the additional storage solutions that we added in the closet. Since she loves doing crafts, sewing and art I brought these clear deep sweater storage boxes to group like items together and then stack the boxes a corner of the closet. This way she can pull out an entire box when she is crafting, throw it all back in the box when she is done and put it out of sight. Each were labeled with these great Avery Chalkboard Labels (pen here) that are a good size to see on larger boxes.

We got all of this done in one day, including a trip to Target and Chick-Fil-A when the girls were melting down with hunger. I hope you love some of my ideas and solutions, check out my favorites on Amazon for home organization.

Hugs, Ry