July 21, 2023

Home improvement - Kids Costume Rail

I'm a pretty firm believer in the Organize 365 principal of "don't sort your kid's room".  Its often the messiest room in my house, but if I sort it then it will still be the messiest room in the house as soon as kids play in it.

However, I do need it to be accessable.  I don't mind toys or books on the floor - I do mind unapproachable chaos.

Recently I realized we have acquired lots of costumes, which had started to overflow the costume bucket.  It also meant that when kids wanted to play with costumes their first action was to dump all the costumes on the floor.  I tried to Lazy Genius this by shoving all the costumes under Isacc's bed (he has the IKEA Kura bed, which is 4 feet off the ground and has space under for playing etc.)

The problem with this method, is that instead of benefitting from the extra play space, I had just created a small chaos space... and the kids still weren't that into costumes once they were scattered everywhere.

I decided to build (or, ask andy to build) a costume rail under the bed.  First I had to find the rail - I found a rake at B&M Bargains for £4 with a wooden handle the right size.  Andy mounted it under the bed (he is very clever with wood things) and then yesterday the IKEA kids hangers showed up.

I don't have a before picture... but now the underside of the bed looks like this:

Isaac was very excited when he got home from nursery.  I still want to sort the box of hats and masks (the grey box) into a slightly more appealing order, but I am hoping that this can be the start of kids hanging things on hooks.  Isaac wanted to hang every hat on a hook, which I think bodes well.

4 comments:

  1. I think it looks wonderful!!! And it’s a teachable skill- to put costumes back on the hangers when they are done playing with them. Well done! Daria from Momofchildren

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  2. Wow! What an excellent use of space and you're a genius for just using a rake handle!!

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  3. That's so cute and functional! Like the dress up corner of a preschool classroom. Genius!

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    1. Thank you! I know I think my house is basically migrating slowly into being a Montessori classroom haha

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