Our play costumes have a new home in the playroom.
When we moved here, I set up the playroom with all of our cube units from our previous house, and just set them up in a row along the back wall.
At first, we kept our costumes in an open toy chest in the playroom area. That was kind of a mess, and the toy chest took up a lot of room.
Then I transferred all the costumes to a plastic bin that I stored underneath the sofa. This was much neater, but since the kids couldn't see the costumes, they didn't play with them nearly as much.
A few weeks ago one of the kids used the cube storage as a ladder and broke the interior shelves.
I decided that this would be a good excuse to turn the cube unit into a costume closet. I have wanted one ever since seeing this one at Rambling Renovators.
I took out the interior of the cube unit. This cube unit was a cheap one from Home Depot, and all I did was unscrew the top and loosen the screws on one side, enabling me to just wiggle the posts out and remove the interior. Then I tightened everything back up so it was reassembled. As a side note, we nailed the pegboard to the back of the unit to give it more structural support; the unit didn't come with that on the back.
I screwed a closet rod socket in the top sides of the unit. These are about $2 at Lowes or your local hardware store; you put the rod in the closed side and then slide the other end in the open side. I discovered these last year when our tension shower rod kept falling down.
I actually used a 24 - 48 inch shower curtain rod for $7 as the closet rod. Using a wooden dowel would have been about $2 cheaper, but the saw at Lowes was broken and thus I went with the expedient route. (Yes, you could just use the tension rod, but my kids will rip that down in a hot second, so I went with the additional reinforcement of a closet rod socket.)
I lined the back with fabric I had in my stash.
And voila, a costume closet for $9.
The playroom has been gone through a serious purge. With the costume closet, we lost 9 bin spots, and I moved another 6-bin cube from the other end up to the Princess's room. The blank spot on the end is to make room for a new play kitchen that should be arriving this week.
Its working; our neighborhood has seen an invasion of terrifying pirate clowns complete with hook hands and cutlasses.
If you have kids, how do you store your play costumes?
When we moved here, I set up the playroom with all of our cube units from our previous house, and just set them up in a row along the back wall.
At first, we kept our costumes in an open toy chest in the playroom area. That was kind of a mess, and the toy chest took up a lot of room.
Then I transferred all the costumes to a plastic bin that I stored underneath the sofa. This was much neater, but since the kids couldn't see the costumes, they didn't play with them nearly as much.
A few weeks ago one of the kids used the cube storage as a ladder and broke the interior shelves.
I decided that this would be a good excuse to turn the cube unit into a costume closet. I have wanted one ever since seeing this one at Rambling Renovators.
I took out the interior of the cube unit. This cube unit was a cheap one from Home Depot, and all I did was unscrew the top and loosen the screws on one side, enabling me to just wiggle the posts out and remove the interior. Then I tightened everything back up so it was reassembled. As a side note, we nailed the pegboard to the back of the unit to give it more structural support; the unit didn't come with that on the back.
I screwed a closet rod socket in the top sides of the unit. These are about $2 at Lowes or your local hardware store; you put the rod in the closed side and then slide the other end in the open side. I discovered these last year when our tension shower rod kept falling down.
I actually used a 24 - 48 inch shower curtain rod for $7 as the closet rod. Using a wooden dowel would have been about $2 cheaper, but the saw at Lowes was broken and thus I went with the expedient route. (Yes, you could just use the tension rod, but my kids will rip that down in a hot second, so I went with the additional reinforcement of a closet rod socket.)
I lined the back with fabric I had in my stash.
And voila, a costume closet for $9.
The playroom has been gone through a serious purge. With the costume closet, we lost 9 bin spots, and I moved another 6-bin cube from the other end up to the Princess's room. The blank spot on the end is to make room for a new play kitchen that should be arriving this week.
Its working; our neighborhood has seen an invasion of terrifying pirate clowns complete with hook hands and cutlasses.
If you have kids, how do you store your play costumes?
Ah so much better! I used to store mine in a big chest as well ... always a huge MESS!! What a creative and awesome MOM! Your kids are very lucky indeed!! xo
ReplyDeleteThat was totally my clown costume when I was in Brownies and we had to march in the halloween parade.
ReplyDeleteI need to do the same thing with our costumes. Yours looks great!
ReplyDeleteLove this idea. We seriously have costume overload at my house. I need to purge - Brandy
ReplyDeleteSuper-clever and cute, too. We had a dress-up trunk. It worked, but this is much nicer.
ReplyDeleteI really love this idea and need to pass it on to my brothers and sister for their kids' dress-up clothes! I especially like how it keeps them visible for spontaneous play AND they're hung at a level they can access on their own.
ReplyDeleteWhat a good idea, love the easy to assemble tips about using a tension rod and socket - that could be used in quite a few other places as well.
ReplyDeleteWe used a wicker basket- laundry size- so T+C could look through, find whatever and clean up was easy. Also, basket could be moved outside , to bedroom or porch. Love your pictures and stories -- and cookies too. Aunt Reggie
ReplyDelete