Finding the right closet and storage solutions is key to creating sustainable home organization for large families.

North Bethesda, Maryland, is a great place to raise a family. It’s beautiful and the schools are fantastic. It’s the kind of town every parent wants their kids to grow up in—and the kind of place where the biggest challenge in your day-to-day life may simply be trying to keep your home organized, in spite of your large, perhaps somewhat disorganized family. 

Over the years, families have come to our design experts time and again for custom closet and storage solutions to make their lives simpler. It’s been our pleasure every time to help them create the organizational systems they need to live their best lives. Here are a few ideas to help you get a handle on what solutions might best fit your home and life.

Closet and Storage Solutions Where You Need Them Most

When you have a large family, one of the secrets to maintaining a tidy, uncluttered life is finding the right place for things that you can’t throw away but don’t want on display. If you don’t make enough space for them, they will end up in your way every time. 

Orderliness can begin at the door when you have a customized mudroom.

• Lockers, with or without doors, can keep children’s jackets, lunches, backpacks and other accessories separate and in order.

• Shoe shelves will transform your floor space, especially if you add some chrome baskets to the design to hold the dog’s things, balls, and other small items.

• A countertop and bench might come in handy too, as a place to store things or a place to rest.

The coat closet is never big enough, and with a big family, there are even more reasons not to love it. But you are stuck with it, and unless you’ve customized it, you are probably looking at entirely preventable chaos.

• Shoe shelves, maybe even two or three shelves stacked, will clear up the very bottom.

• If you have a high shelf at the top, get rid of it. Instead, imagine a pulldown rod (called a wardrobe lift) that brings your coats down and out to you when you need them, and then slides back up into the no man’s land by the ceiling.

•  While freeing up more accessible space, you may discover you have space for adjustable shelves for your umbrellas, gloves, shoeshine kits and other outdoor accessories. Will it be packed tight in there? For sure. Will it look nice? Absolutely.

Your kids’ reach-in closets are probably the biggest challenge to your organizational efforts. But don’t give up, because more of your children’s things staying in their rooms means less of it to trip over everywhere else.

• Adjustable shelving is a big deal in the children’s rooms, because good closet and storage solutions will grow and evolve with them, from their taking first steps to leaving for college. Think about ample shelving for clothes and toys to help little ones keep their rooms nice and tidy with ease.

• A little rod can be handy for hanging the odd dress-up piece on.

• A few drawers are useful for storing underwear and other things that won’t sit on shelves.

In contrast to bedrooms and bathrooms, laundry rooms often have a lot of bare, unused wall space. Maybe there are shelves near the washer and dryer, but if there are, they may be loaded with completely unrelated material—craft supplies from last winter, the aquarium where the pet snake lived, that extra gallon of the paint for the living room, or whatever.

• Think of how nice it would be to have that stuff off in the other corner. Then you could have soap on the shelves and a few hooks and rods to make the laundry easier.

• Now imagine shelves all along the wall from one corner to the other, and all of the things that could be stored on them. 

Your walk-in pantry can be super-efficient and a pleasure to use if you customize it to your family’s needs.

• You can store your family’s table linens and flatware here in customized drawers, leaving ample space on shelves for small appliances, canned goods, and fine china.

• You may buy food in bulk, as many large families do. Large chrome baskets will help you store bulk items conveniently so that things are easily visible and don’t get mixed together.

• Adjustable shelves are the secret to your success here too. Put the things you use the most in the center of the wall and the things you use the least on the outer edges—light things on the upper shelves, and heavy things on the bottom shelves. By leaving just the right amount of space for your particular things, you can store things maximally compactly.

• A floor-to-ceiling lazy Susan can also help put corner areas to good use, ensuring that no potential storage space is wasted. 

Big Families Need Better Organization in the Home

The possibilities for improving your organization are practically infinite. Why not explore them in a free design consultation with a Closet America expert? You can talk about your family’s particular needs and experience interactive 3D CAD modeling of closet and storage solutions that will help you visualize what you want—and how our experts can make it happen.

Closet America is a locally owned company with production facilities in Landover, MD. All of our systems are made by hand using the highest quality engineering and materials. Our ¾-inch thermo-fused laminate shelves come in a variety of finishes and never sag. They also have metal supports for the greatest possible safety and durability. Drawers are dovetailed and have slides on the bottom to allow full extension. And all of our work comes with a transferrable warranty good for twice the life of your home.

Contact Closet America today to schedule an appointment with a design specialist and find out all the ways you can use custom design to make your home neat and organized.