Alright few quick adorable stories before I show you the project I have been waiting to show you!!! So today I asked Julius to help Patricia wash her hands before dinner. He took the job very seriously and immediately dropped what he was doing and took her hand and guided her into the bathroom before helping her get soap on her hands and rub them together. Patricia loved it, because she loves washing her hands and she loves her brother. It was the most adorable thing to watch. Speaking of adorable, Will’s family was planning to take an adults only trip (those plans have since changed) and Julius overheard us talking about it. He naturally asked us about it, and if he was going too and we explained that it was adults only. He didn’t blink and eye and said, rather excitedly, “that’s okay I can stay home and watch Patricia!” I still cannot get the (hilarious? adorable? insane? concerning?) image of 4 year old Julius babysitting 16 month Patricia out of my head.
Another adorable story is that yesterday Patricia kept walking over to the table and saying what we thought was mama, or perhaps “more more” but didn’t sound quite right. Eventually we realized she was saying “momo” and pointing to the “Go Away Monster” box. We handed her the bag of monsters and she lovingly crooned “momos” as she proceeded to take each one out of the bag and carry it around. We’re probably down 7 or 8 monsters now (out of 8). They’ve got to be somewhere in this mess….
Well speaking of my completely disheveled house our black hole filled with toys getting my act together… I organized a mess and I’m quite proud of it. Our closet started out like this:
This disaster was our original closet organization. It looks SO much better now.
There were not enough room for shoes, the hooks were the mushroom type hooks that never really held your coat properly, we had no where to put our hats, gloves and winter gear, small odds and ends constantly fell through the wire shelving, and Julius and Patricia could not reach their coats, even with a step stool. I have resolved ALL of the above problems.
The first thing I tackled was the shoe rack. The shoe rack served us well for many years, but it had a few problems. First, the distance between each rack was way too far apart for normal shoes, but way too short for boots. Plus shoes on the top portion would constantly hit our coats since the rack was so high. Because our closet was so shallow I couldn’t find a rack that would fit out of the box, so I custom built this one to fit the closet, and it just perfectly fits. To solve the functionality problems of our old rack, I narrowed the distance between the racks and widened it, increasing the amount of shoes we could fit overall while shortening the height of the rack.
New custom coat rack.
My next step was the coat hooks. I sawed off all the mushroom type hooks (I saved them for a later project… maybe a fairy wonderland). Then I repainted the coat hook rack and added multiple types of metal hooks. Between the large coat/hat hooks I added smaller individual hooks, that we’ve been using for backpacks and purses.
Next I added in a new little coat rack I made myself using small individual hooks, and I mounted it on the door at kid-height. I used some special anchors made for hollow doors to mount the coat rack.
After I’d tackled the hangers, I took down the wire shelf and replaced it with a simple wooden shelf with metal brackets (spray painted with the same copper paint I used for the shoe rack). I also raised the shelf slightly to make way for my final idea.
The last step was to add somewhere easily accessible to store our hats/gloves etc. I debated between baskets in various orientations, and eventually went with these little crates I found at Michaels at a discount. I added 3/8″ elastic in a zig zag pattern to hold in our gear, and screwed the crates directly into the wall (with drywall anchors). They have been holding up great!
Overall I’m THRILLED with this tiny remodel! It took me many months to complete because I was working on other, more pressing concerns throughout, but now that it’s done, it feels so much more organized! The kiddos love being able to access their own coats and because we’ve increased the amount of hooks we also finally have somewhere to store their backpacks when they aren’t in use! Okay all you other type A’s, go ahead and bask in the glory of organization! 
If you want to tackle any of these projects yourself I’ll be blogging about them in the future. Oh and just a reminder to enter the contest for March!! You have until next Monday (April 4th) to enter, before I draw names!
