Or if you COULD, would you? How?

We're looking at houses and I have loved the idea of a family closet for a long time. Right now all of the hang up clothes go in our closet (bypass doors with a second shelf installed at waist-height on one side only). The rest of the clothes (jammies, playclothes, socks, underwear) go in drawers in their rooms.

I'm not sure what we should use the closet space for, though. Right now it's just bin storage - off season clothes, etc. but it looks really - I don't know - utilitarian. We are going to start showing our house, I think, this spring and I need a way to make it appeal to people.

Aside from that, if you have a family closet - how does it work? Do you put all clean clothes in it? Is it in the main floor laundry or is it in the bedrooms?

The house we're looking at has a small laundry/mud room and I don't think it would work for a family closet. :( But it has walk-ins for every bedroom. I really wanted a place to hang everything near the laundry, though - so we weren't carting things up and down all the time. But, then again, they would get dressed upstairs where the bedrooms are, right?

Any thoughts?

We had afamily closet in our house in Omaha. The laundry room was HUGE and the bedrooms had TINY closets. So, I put a long dresser in the laundry room and put hanging rod/shelves over the dresser and along another wall. Each child had a basket for socks which was placed on top of the hanging shelf. Each child also had his own color hangers - made picking something out SO much easier.

There was a laundry basket right there for dirty clothing, so the kids could just get dressed right there in the laundry room. I even put up a mirror for them.

Their bedroom closets were used for toy storage/management.

TOYS! That's bloody brilliant!

We may be giving up our playroom for the time being (until we finish the basement) and I'll need a place for toys, I fear.

My old neighbor used to say closets are for storage , not clothes...which makes sense but not if you want your clothes with no wrinkles:)

So on that note, it would be my DREAM, to move my laundry area downstairs( I have a laundry closet,lol) and hang up rods for storing hanging clothes right by the washer,And shelves for baskets for the kids/our undergarmets and clean jammies. We'd put up a mirror so all dressing would take place there. That way all dirty laundry would be contained. It would be so much easier... and I only do laundry for 6...lol

TOYS! That's bloody brilliant!

We may be giving up our playroom for the time being (until we finish the basement) and I'll need a place for toys, I fear.

LOL... I love putting the toys mostly in the closet. Frees up space in the room to ... PLAY! :lol:

We kind of do by default. I have a huge laundry room and I had one stand up hanging rack that I would sort our clothes on with the intention of moving the clothes to the closets. Well it got to the point where I was never moving the clothes. I ended up getting a second hanging rack and now most of the clothes stay in the laundry room. The boys each have a basket with their pjs, underwear and socks. I keep these baskets in the laundry room under a slim table that I use to fold clothes. Then I have 3 small round baskets that are for dirty clothes. The boys pretty much go to the laundry room in the morning and at night to get dresses. Dh and I go in the morning and night and get our clothes and take them to the bathroom to get dressed.

We also have a shoe rack on the back of the door in the laundry room and we take our shoes off as we come in and they are stored there. The boys shoe go in a bench in our "mudroom". We have coat hooks for us and the boys in the mudroom.

I will try to post photos later. I still need to get things cleaned up.

Oh and we use the boys closets for storage of toys. Seems to help keep their rooms cleaner in the long run.

I really really want to have a family closet. I haven't done it yet but I think it would be fantastic!

Rolling rack!
I got one with a 3 bin sorter underneath. I Hang EVERYTHING that I can of thegirls. I hang outfits together so they don't have to match, they just grab and go.

The boys stuff mostly goes in drawers. I hang everything, then roll the rack around and deliver the clothes.

I think I would really really love one.....but there is absolutely no way we could have one for the whole family. So, what we have done is to put a second bar in the closet in the room with the boys. All of the boys shirts (except baby for now) is hung in there. They have drawers under their bed. Two drawers for shorts and pants, and one drawer for undies, socks, pjs.

The other room is the "toy" room, but we are getting ready to make it a room for our oldest son and the baby when he is ready to move into a room. The most of the toys will stay in that room still because we are going to use that closet for most of the toys.

In our next house, I would love to have a huge laundry room to use for that purpose....right now I have none.

I don't have a good method to speak of but I always thought the upstairs laundry rooms were nice idea. I am just glad not to have my laundry room in the basement like some homes. What do the kids think?

we don't have a family closet now, and I am not sure there is anywhere in my current home we could convert into one! :lol: But when we move in the future it is a MUST HAVE-with a lock on the door so that the little kids can not get in and change their clothes 50 times a day! :lol: