The Problem: A Scattered Storage System Leads to a Stressed-Out Mom
It’s laundry day. You can’t seem to stick to a [One-Load-a-Day Laundry Rhythm] because the task of putting clothes away feels insurmountable. Every load from the dryer is a mountain of decisions—a train heading to multiple destinations. Upstairs, downstairs, the master bedroom, three different kids’ rooms. It’s like running a marathon with every load.
No wonder the laundry piles up until it feels like a form of self-torture. In our family of eight—including four still in diapers—I had to get serious. Whether you have ten kids or two, the traditional method of storing clothing in separate bedrooms might not be working for you either.
If your littles don’t dress themselves or put away their own laundry, why store their clothes in separate closets all over the house? Not only is the laundry harder, but getting everyone dressed each morning—a monumental task to begin with—is significantly more difficult.
The Philosophy: The “One-Room” Destination
The solution is simple: store everything in one central location. In our house, a hall coat closet works perfectly. Ideally, you might use a closet directly in your laundry room or perhaps designate just one bedroom closet for all the children’s clothes.
If you want unconventional results, you must use an unconventional method. This one change saves me hours. Putting away clothes for four toddlers now takes just minutes. One basket, one closet, no headache.
The Paradox of Choice: More Kids Shouldn’t Equal More Stuff
You may be thinking: How am I going to fit clothes for all of my kids in one closet? I can barely fit them in the three closets I’m using now! And that’s a valid concern. My younger self, who only had two children, would look at the amount of clothing that I kept in their closets at the time and think, “FAT CHANCE!” No way I could scale this up to six kids.
But honestly, looking back, my older girls wore only a fraction of those clothes on repeat. They would grow out of clothes before they even had a chance to wear them all.
The truth: your kids don’t need that much stuff, and you don’t need the headache of managing it all.
The harder truth: if you want your laundry system to run on autopilot, you need to significantly reduce the amount of clothing that is cycling through it.
(Every item of clothing for 4 toddlers comfortably fits in one closet)
The Prismatic Sorting Method: How I Sort it All
Now, in a closet that holds clothing for four different kids—two girls, two boys, ages 3, 2, 2, and 1—how do you decide to sort it all? A size 2T in one brand is basically an 18-month in another, and my one-year-old girl is catching up to my two-year-old in both size and attitude. And depending on color, my boy-girl-twins share the same onesies. So how do you break all that down?
I don’t sort by size; I sort by color. And this is why:
Outfit Assembly: When I dress everyone, I choose one color and everyone gets it. It cuts decision fatigue. We all color-coordinate, which looks cute in those random candid pictures and makes it easier to scan the crowd of kids at church to find yours if they are all in roughly the same color. Bonus: you look like a cohesive family unit instead of a traveling circus.
Laundry Efficiency: As I mentioned in my [Laundry Routine], I don’t sort laundry by color; I sort by destination. But if everyone is wearing the same color at the same time, when the load goes into the washer, it means there’s still an element of color sorting happening automatically. Many people sort by color going into the wash and separate by room afterward. I reverse the process. I put things in the washer with other clothes going to the same room, and then I sort by color in that closet. Trust me, this is more efficient.
Speed: When I’m picking outfits for everyone, I’m only searching for one color, so it reduces the amount of clothing that I have to search through from the whole closet down to one small section of color. This saves so much time and stops the “FOMO” that happens when you’re looking at the left side of the closet, wondering if there’s something better on the right side. I spend much less time deciding what everyone should wear and I’m able to move onto the actual process of getting everyone dressed.
The Purging: Deciding What to Keep vs. What to Toss
- Size: Only keep what actively fits your children right now in your everyday system. Every item you have to pass over or put back in the drawer because it’s the wrong size is stealing your time, cluttering your mind, and road-blocking your way to maximum efficiency. So, if it’s too big or too small, it needs to go somewhere else. I keep a “too small” hamper right in the closet for immediate purging.
A small bin at the top of the closet is good for those items that are just a little too big for my two-year-old boy, but a little too small for my three-year-old. Those items are just on hold for a moment. I don’t want them in the drawers where I have to pass over them each day, but I also don’t want them so far away that I forget they exist. For items that are really the wrong size, like hand-me-downs from my older girls, those items are stored boxed in a closet in the little girls’ bedroom.
- Color: If an item doesn’t fit my color-sorting system, it goes. If everyone always wears similar colors, I know that that bright neon yellow shirt is NEVER going to be the option I reach for. This will also help you on the front end when purchasing clothing to begin with. When staring at an item in a store, I no longer ask, “Is this cute?” (it’s always cute). Instead, I ask: Will this fit into my color sorting system? or Do my kids already have enough in this color? These two questions have helped me so much to resist the urge to overspend on unnecessary children’s clothing. Sorting by color puts a cap on clutter before it even leaves the store.
- Type: Each child has a column of four drawers (PJs, socks/tights, shorts, and pants). I let the drawers dictate how much clothing I can keep. Pick the favorite pants, and only keep what comfortably fits in that drawer. That will be plenty of clothing for each kid. Everything else—shirts, dresses, onesies—is hung by color.
The Peace: Freedom from the Overwhelm
In our home we live by the philosophy [abundance, not surplus]. Keeping more clothing is not a gift to yourself. You need peace of mind and freedom from the laundry mountain. When you design storage with intention, it is the final cog in the wheel that makes your home run like a well-oiled machine.
Laundry doesn’t mentally drain me anymore. Sometimes the simplest designs are the most beautiful.
As a mom of many, I’ve found that eliminating the clutter allows the hard-working items in your home to shine their best. Another huge clutter pain point for mothers is the playroom. But, through years of experience, I have transitioned from Surviving Motherhood by Default to Thriving in Motherhood by Design. Reducing toy clutter was a huge contribution to the process. If you want to know more, check out my [Favorite Toys for Encouraging Independent Play] post here.
Do you struggle more with washing or putting laundry away? Where do your kids’ clothes live? Let’s talk about your biggest hurdle in the comments below!