"This is my room, and this is my dresser. It's where I keep my shirts when I'm not wearing them."
The dresser in the boys’ room wasn’t working out. Their ever-growing clothes were bursting out of it. The once solid seams were falling apart from months of abuse at the hands of toddlers. The boys had discovered how to tip it onto each other. It was time for us to part ways.
This dresser was crafted of particle board so it wasn’t a huge loss beyond the fact that its big box store receipt wasn’t old enough to yellow yet. We would have trouble finding something to replace it, though. I didn’t want to waste money on a nice dresser the boys would destroy in a few more months. Mommy didn’t want to buy some cheap, top heavy contraption that could fall on them.* Mommy spent many days searching the stores and the Internet for a dresser that was wide and short to minimize the chances of the boys tipping it, and cheap to minimize the chances of me freaking out.
We discovered the solution one night in a big box store. It was a storage system made of wire racks. It formed a series of cubbyholes in about 18-inches cubes. We bought two of them, and set them on the floor of their room in a configuration three cubes wide by two cubes tall. We also bought several baskets to hold their clothes and slide into the cubbyholes. The entire purchase cost about the same as the dresser that was now gathering dust in our basement, so it met my cheapness criteria. The systems were also wide and lightweight, so if the boys did manage to tip them onto each other it would cause no more damage than the fall they take off their riding car several times a day. As a bonus, these contraptions are flimsy and held together with tension at the seams, so if/when the boys break them we can easily fix them.
We’ve been using this system for several days now, and so far it meets our initial criteria. They’ve pulled the wire racks apart several times, and we’ve quickly restored them to their cubbyhole glory. They haven’t discovered how to tip them yet, and we appreciate that feature. Indeed, the contraptions are so flimsy that their rarely used self-preservation instincts kick in and suggest that climbing the racks is a bad idea.
This clothes storage system would be perfect except for one thing: We can’t keep clothes in it. Those boxes meant to hold clothes are too alluring for the boys to ignore. They pull the boxes off the shelves, and throw the fabric treasures they contain throughout the room. Sometimes they want to play with the clothes. Sometimes they want an empty box to play with, climbing inside, hiding inside, or just finding creative ways to abuse their seams.
The result is most of their clothes are now on the floor. Their room is a giant mess, but we’ve achieved our dual objectives in finding a new clothing storage system. Dumping all their clothes on the floor is free, and there’s nothing for them to tip onto each other. Now the only danger is someone getting hurt playing King of the Mountain on a clothes pile.
* This cheap vs. safe dynamic mirrors many parental battles we have.
This dresser was crafted of particle board so it wasn’t a huge loss beyond the fact that its big box store receipt wasn’t old enough to yellow yet. We would have trouble finding something to replace it, though. I didn’t want to waste money on a nice dresser the boys would destroy in a few more months. Mommy didn’t want to buy some cheap, top heavy contraption that could fall on them.* Mommy spent many days searching the stores and the Internet for a dresser that was wide and short to minimize the chances of the boys tipping it, and cheap to minimize the chances of me freaking out.
We discovered the solution one night in a big box store. It was a storage system made of wire racks. It formed a series of cubbyholes in about 18-inches cubes. We bought two of them, and set them on the floor of their room in a configuration three cubes wide by two cubes tall. We also bought several baskets to hold their clothes and slide into the cubbyholes. The entire purchase cost about the same as the dresser that was now gathering dust in our basement, so it met my cheapness criteria. The systems were also wide and lightweight, so if the boys did manage to tip them onto each other it would cause no more damage than the fall they take off their riding car several times a day. As a bonus, these contraptions are flimsy and held together with tension at the seams, so if/when the boys break them we can easily fix them.
We’ve been using this system for several days now, and so far it meets our initial criteria. They’ve pulled the wire racks apart several times, and we’ve quickly restored them to their cubbyhole glory. They haven’t discovered how to tip them yet, and we appreciate that feature. Indeed, the contraptions are so flimsy that their rarely used self-preservation instincts kick in and suggest that climbing the racks is a bad idea.
This clothes storage system would be perfect except for one thing: We can’t keep clothes in it. Those boxes meant to hold clothes are too alluring for the boys to ignore. They pull the boxes off the shelves, and throw the fabric treasures they contain throughout the room. Sometimes they want to play with the clothes. Sometimes they want an empty box to play with, climbing inside, hiding inside, or just finding creative ways to abuse their seams.
The result is most of their clothes are now on the floor. Their room is a giant mess, but we’ve achieved our dual objectives in finding a new clothing storage system. Dumping all their clothes on the floor is free, and there’s nothing for them to tip onto each other. Now the only danger is someone getting hurt playing King of the Mountain on a clothes pile.
* This cheap vs. safe dynamic mirrors many parental battles we have.
posted by Matt at
11:29 PM
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