Toddler Reading Nook in Closet

Having a reading nook for my son is something I've always wanted. There are such wonderful pictures online of glorious and relaxing reading nooks for adults and children alike. Living in an apartment makes it a little difficult to find space to have an added space like this, but thinking outside the box helps. 

We had a blank wall in the master bedroom closet which was just dead space. Since I have my own closet in the guest bedroom and the boys (father and son) share the master bedroom closet, I thought it would be appropriate to keep a little reading nook for the tiny tot in the unused space: 

My son absolutely LOVES this little area! As soon as the closet door opens, he runs inside, grabs a book (or three) and sit down to read in his own baby language. It's just adorable to see a tiny bookworm :)

For the sitting area, I had a cushion and Boppy pillow from before, so that didn't cost anything for this particular project. However, I had bought these wall shelves from Amazon:

It definitely meets the needs of a 20 month old. Each shelf can hold two layers of books, so there's enough room to grow for now.

I've set up another option in the picture below. Instead of using cushions, you can also use a toddler chair and add a chalkboard so they can draw. I'm waiting until he gets a little older to add the chalkboard though (I will most probably hang it below the shelves) because he is too young to use chalks right now. Would be a great little area to learn his ABC's! You can see how I made this chalkboard for an extremely affordable price right over here. 

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I Heart Organizing

Realistic Coat Closet Organization

Our coat closet had become a disaster zone. So I turned to Pinterest for inspiration to get me started. I noticed that most of the pictures up, especially the ones from magazine styled websites, weren't very realistic at all. The coat closet is a central location in the household used by all family members. Since when did all family members together have a total of 3-4 coats, which were all color coordinated? Don't get me wrong, the closets were gorgeous. Just not realistic. So I decided to see what I could do myself. The coat closet is directly next to my Apartment Entryway that I recently changed up.
 

 Here's the before...painful, I know:

The issues:

-Green plastic hangers (??)
-Too many clothes
-Door space not maximized
-Don't know what I will discover underneath the coats!!

I cleared out the entire space. Found an old bookshelf at the back of the closet, along with 2 air mattresses (why??) and other junk in the closet. I had bought some wooden hangers from IKEA because the plastic ones were all arching and deforming because of the heavy coats. I also already had this hanger on hand which I used for the scarves: 

This hanger allowed me to put up 10 scarves instead of 1!

Here are the steps I took:

1) Donated coats that I don't wear often. This allowed more breathing space in the closet.

2) Wooden hangers made a huge difference. They hold the coats' heaviness a lot better than plastic hangers, and look more uniform.

3) Ordered the coats according to length, and categorized them into mine, my husband's and my son's.

4) Used the spare bookshelf for extra shoes that didn't fit on the shoe shelf, and added a basket.

5) Organized scarves on pant hanger

6) Added some simple decor by writing out "His" and "Hers" on both sides.

Don't want to use wall decals? Draw your own designs on designed paper and use gel pen to make it look like decal.

 

This basket is from the Dollar Store and holds miscellaneous items

An old bookshelf with some extra shoes

This area definitely looks more organized than it used to! I didn't color coordinate this closet like my own one because I knew it would be difficult for other family members to keep up with it. Adding the "His" and "Hers" sign was a nice, simple touch that reminds us not to just dump our coats in anywhere but keep it either on the left or right hand side.

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