I’m back today with the ‘afters’ of Maya’s closet. We tried to keep this one on budget, and I’m pretty happy with the way it turned out. It is pretty but also packs in function.
And the best part?
We still have some room to grow into it. She definitely has the nicest closet in the house – lucky little lady!
How to Create a Pretty and Functional Kids Closet
After wallpapering the closet in Graham & Brown’s gorgeous Isabelle Blue paper – you can catch all my wallpaper 101 tips and tricks in that post – it was time to finish putting the closet together.
Here is a reminder of what we were starting with. We built that top shelf using MDF and purchased the railing from the hardware store.
And here it is post-painting and wallpapering, below. The whole scheme of the closet is colourful, pretty, and reminds me of an English garden. Graham & Brown’s September trend, “Horizon”, was all about taking inspiration of nature into your interior design scheme and I think this totally fits the bill. It feels like you’re opening the door into a pretty garden and comes off all fresh and sweet. 
In order to figure out what made the most sense for how to lay out the closet, we wrote out a list of what we would be wanting to store in there. In her dresser, Maya has her tee-shirts, long sleeve shirts, pants/leggings, and PJs. All other clothing items (socks, underwear, shorts, sweaters, dresses, etc) were for the closet, but in addition to that I wanted to be able to put away all of her “accessories” (head bands, bracelets, etc), diapers and wipes, her carrier, extra blankets and linens, and awkward stuff like her lifejacket. The other thing that we took into consideration was the longevity of the interior fittings – we wanted the closet to be able to grow with her and accommodate her changing storage needs.
We had already built the one shelf at the top and installed a long rod along the length of the closet. Instead of doing a double railing or anything else built-in, we opted to go for an IKEA Kallax unit.
This would mean we could have a mixture of pull-out baskets, drawers, and the top shelf of the unit for shoes. Because it isn’t built-in, it’s easy to move out down the road if Maya ends up wanting to switch things up. We used the two by four kallax unit in high gloss white (this one), which runs about $100. We paired it with the Skubb baskets in light green (these – $18 for three), four Kallax drawer units (that fit into 2 of the box spaces), and also decided to get a Skubb hanging multi-shelf in the same green (this guy – costs $10). The light green just happened to go so nicely with the floral paper and minty doors. A couple of big bins on the top shelf (got those from HomeSense) help to organize some of the bulkier stuff on the upper shelf.
Stored in the baskets:
// socks
// underwear
// swimwear
// stockings
// shorts
// extra linens 
In the drawers:
// headbands, elastics, and bracelets
// diaper pail liners
// two empty ones to grow into (yesssss…!!)
Hung up:
// cardigans and sweaters
// dresses
On the top shelf:
// large bins with blankets and sleep sacs, lifejacket, carrier, etc
// diapers
// wipes
It’s REALLY nice not to have to store big boxes of diapers and wipes somewhere else. They are bulky and annoying, and it is nice to be able to shove them into a closet out of sight.
See that basket on the floor under the hanging shelves? It’s meant for the clothes that Maya grows out of. I organize her clothes into bins according to age, and it’s annoying to do a trip up to the storage area and haul out the appropriate bin when she has just grown out of one or two things. Rather than throwing them on the floor as I had been doing, having a dedicated bin where I can put them until I have a sec to transfer them upstairs has been hugely handy.
So for a few hundred dollars and no complicated install, we have this sweet closet for Maya that keeps things super organized (which makes mama all kinds of happy), and will grow with our girl over time.
Have you guys used any closet systems in your place? Ever wallpapered one? Have tips on keeping kids things organized? I’d love to hear about it!