This Bookshelf Clothes Storage Hack Will Keep Things Organized!

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If you have a TON of dress-up clothes, check out this bookshelf clothes storage hack to keep things organized!

Bookshelf Clothes Storage Hack to Store Dress-Up Clothes

PPP Contributor Laura here!

If you have dress-up clothes in your kids’ play area, you probably know how quickly they can move from “Wow it’s fun to pretend!” to “Did a tornado rip through our house?”.

I’ve always felt like storage options that look organized when picked up but also encourage spontaneous imaginative play are hard to find. I wanted to make our dress-up clothes accessible in our playroom without looking messy.

I decided the solution was to create some DIY dress-up storage and it was surprisingly easy!

How to use a bookshelf for Clothes Storage

We had an ever-popular cube storage shelf (Almost identical in size/shape to this Amazon one) in our playroom already. It currently held books but I could move them to a different shelf as part of my playroom makeover. Cube shelves make excellent storage for kids items since you can tuck things away in baskets and bins without compromising your decorating style. I decided to convert this shelf into dress-up storage.

NOTE: You’ll want to start with a cube shelf in which the cubes are about 13″ Square – to have enough height for children’s dress-up clothes!

The only “construction” I had to do in order to make the change was to remove the center shelf because I had a vision of hanging dresses as part of the organized look I was going for. However, if you’ve ever put together a cube shelf, you know that each step snowballs another so once they’re together, it’s not necessarily feasible to just remove a shelf on a whim. I suggested my husband cut the screws holding the shelf in with a saw but he thought it would scratch the side panels. He suggested taking the whole shelf apart and rebuilding it but I just didn’t have the patience for it.

Enter: a hammer and optimism. With one good hit from below, I knocked the shelf out. A little bit of percussive maintenance goes a long way! The shelf broke but the side panels were perfectly intact and I could remove the screws and be on my merry way. If you buy a new cube shelf for this project, you can easily leave out the middle shelf when building. I don’t feel like it comprises stability at all.

For the hanging clothes, I bought a mini tension rod to put across the top of the middle section. I used these adorable kid-sized velvet hangers to hang our princess dresses. My three-year-old was ecstatic to see her dresses displayed!

The top cubes are for accessories. On one side, I put a tiered bracelet bar to hold necklaces and bracelets. They’re all visible and look so cute but have a specific home. The other side holds a small vanity mirror, crowns, and sunglasses.

For the bottom two cubes, I used square bins I already had to hold all of the miscellaneous accessories. For these, I was being realistic that there’s only so much organizing you can do in your playroom and still set kids up for success when cleaning up after themselves. So, the bins hold purses, hats, capes, and a few imaginative play items that can all be easily picked up and put in their respective homes.

We love our new dress-up storage and my daughter has already played dress-up more times in the last few weeks than she has in a year because she can walk right up, grab some goodies, and accessorize herself! Coco Chanel has nothing on my preschooler! I love that it is organized and each different item has an obvious home, which helps my daughter in putting things back where they go. It’s a win-win!