Conquering Clothing Clutter: Kid's Dresser

Welcome back to "Conquer Your Clothing Clutter week!  Are you all having so much fun?  So far I have researched and shared some tips, worked on our boy's shared closet and shared some updates I made to make my own closet more functional.

Today I sharing the process of organizing my ten year old son's dresser drawers. 

As I mentioned yesterday, I went in there a little frightened.  Here at the Jones abode, the boys are responsible for putting away their own laundry {and picking out their own clothes}.  So it is rare that I see the contents of my son's dresser.  Preston has a heart of gold, would do anything for anyone and I couldn't be more proud of him for endless reasons, but the kid isn't the tidiest or most organized.  It's always a work in progress to get him simple systems that are easy for him to maintain.

Since I knew his drawers really had no system, I wasn't sure what I would find... here is the before:

I will say, I was impressed that he was putting all of his shirts in one drawer, and pants and shorts in another.  High five kiddo!

But, the dresser needed some love.  I have makeover plans for the exterior of it down the line, so this post is all about the interior.

The first thing I noticed about this project, is that there was no way to divide the clothes by type.  I wasn't going to be too picky, just thought it would be easier to have pants and shorts divided, and long sleeve and short sleeves divided.

Because the drawers are all solid wood, we decided to DIY the drawer dividers out of a simple cut of 1/2" thick wood scrap wood.

To install the wooden divider, the hubs cut it to the right length and then used liquid nails to glue it inside the drawer.

 
And secured it in with the air nailer:

Then I gave the entire inside two quick coats of paint {with the exception of the bottom since I knew it was going to get lined.

Once the paint was dry, I used a bit of spray adhesive, the leftover pieces of wrapping paper {from this project}, and had nice new drawers!

Much better already!

In the bottom drawer, I threw a couple of ITSO bins the boys had been using to lay out their clothes the night before.  Now that I hang them, we had spare bins which couldn't be more perfect for the bottom of the dresser to divide pj's, undies and socks:

My kid's have had a clothes folder for a few years now.  My oldest had been deciding to skip it.  For this project, I re-introduced him to it.

Shirts in the top drawer:

 

Pants and shorts in the next drawer:

And pj's, undies {left out of the photo, wouldn't want to embarrass the kid and show his underoos to the world}, swimsuit and socks in the bottom drawer:

He was impressed by the difference.  I was impressed that he was impressed!

And now for those oh so delightful before and after pictures that make my heart sing happy songs:

During the process we made sure to check his inventory, we ended up finding just a couple of shirts to donate and realized we were short on shorts {ha! sorry, couldn't resist}.

Will he always fold his clothes so nicely?  Although with the folder it was quite quick and easy, probably not.  But I am OK with that as long as he can easily find things by using the new dividers.

Whew.  Conquering clothing clutter has come to an end {until next season of course}.  I love that some of the projects were cheap and simple, others were a mix and match of splurged on storage systems and already owned baskets and bins and some {like this dresser update} were totally free since we just used materials we already had on hand!

Next post will be a link party so everyone can share their Conquered Clothing progress!  Can't wait to see what you all have been up to!