The family closet: A new laundry hack to control the chaos
Published on October 4, 2025
Overwhelmed by clothing care chaos? First there’s the washing, then the drying, then the dreaded step of folding and putting away. Laundry can often feel like a never-ending chore – especially when you’re in a house full of active people! It’s time to flip your laundry and clothes storage on its head and consider the family closet.
What is a family closet?
The family closet is a shared area that stores clothing for all household members. It can be as simple as moving the entire family’s dressers into the same room, or as elaborate as custom-built-ins with a nearby washer-dryer. The key is that all the family’s clothing is located in one confined area, rather than spread across the house in various bedrooms.
Confine the clothing chaos
Traditional laundry set-ups involve clothing stored in multiple areas around the house. This requires significant movement from room to room to collect the dirty articles of clothing and then to transport them to a centralized laundry area, only to return the laundry to the multiple locations again later.
The family closet eliminates extra movement from room to room and centralizes all the family’s clothing in one area. Putting away clothing is a breeze, because it’s all within arm’s reach. The logic is similar to keeping all food and food preparation items in the kitchen. Why not keep all laundry in one centralized closet?
Less clutter, more clarity
Switching clothing for the seasons or sizing up kids’ clothing can be quite the ordeal. Even these bigger seasonal clothing chores are made easier by the family closet. If you have the space, off-season clothing can be stored away in the same vicinity as the on-season clothing currently in use. Handing down one kid’s clothes to the next sibling is as simple as moving them to the next drawer.
Gone are the days of piles of clothes all over the bathroom floor and outfits strewn across bedrooms. With a family closet, everyone can get dressed and undressed in the same area (at different times!) so that all clothes, dirty or clean, stay in one area of the home. You may also find that once all the clothing is gathered in one space, inventorying the clothing needs of your family members becomes much clearer and more manageable. You might even be motivated to substantially pare down your family’s clothing stash!
Empower kids with simple habits
For smaller children, a family closet can help build habits of independence when it comes to dressing for the day or changing for bedtime. Especially with toddlers and preschoolers, the step of getting dressed is simplified, and potential distractions are removed by being in an area used exclusively for dressing. They can practice putting their clean clothing away right next to you as you model putting your own clothes away.
Ideal for large families or small spaces
Because the family closet frees up bedroom space, it is the ideal solution for smaller homes or large families. Instead of spreading out clothing storage across the house, you can relocate the dressers to a designated area – and maybe fit that second bunk bed where a dresser used to be!
Potential downsides
Overhauling your laundry system is a big undertaking, so it’s important to be aware of a few obstacles that might arise. With a family closet set up, there is a potential for decreased privacy since all the clothing is centralized rather than in the individual bedrooms. If it does not work logistically for your family to get dressed in the same area, this can be remedied with a side area (similar to a fitting room in a store) where the individual can dress and undress. Additionally, family members can wear robes after undressing and then return to the family closet to get dressed after bathing.
If laundry has been a constant struggle, the family closet could be the hack you’ve been waiting for! Your family closet could be a small, hard-to-use bedroom, a large walk-in closet, or even shelving around your basement washer/dryer. Finding a system that works for your family will simplify your efforts and finally end the laundry chaos cycle.
Related Posts
Elegant Christmas décor ideas to deck (not drown) the halls
By Jessica Nardi
Roasted Brussels sprouts with balsamic glaze, pomegranate, and Parmesan
By Calista Boskus
A well thought out solution! Now bedrooms are not so messy! Everyone can help do all the steps of laundry; all practicing team maintenance of chores!
We started doing this a few years and it has been such a game changer!! We have 5 young kids, bedrooms uostairs, and my husband and I have our master bedroom downstairs. In the morning, the kids come down to snuggle, and all of their on-season daytime clothes are in a dresser in our room. Then pjs, off season, and fancy clothes are in their room, where we get ready for bed. Only one dresser leaves plenty of room for 2 bunk beds and so it’s easy to have 4 kids share a room! (The baby gets his own space for now, haha). I would definitely recommend thinking through the benefits of this system in your family, especially with young children who need more direction.
You could avoid the problem of privacy in dressing and undressing by doing that in your own room. Just draw down your clothes from the family closet and return them there to your own hamper in the closet for washing (lessening the sorting time). Or just keep the clothes in the individual rooms and have everyone bring their own laundry bag to the washing-sorting-folding area themselves, and collect them when clean, for storing themselves. Only really little kids do everything in the laundry. But ladies, seriously, there are few things a wonderful a laundry equipment on the same floor as the bedrooms–or really, anywhere but the basement. Get your husband interested by suggesting that the move will make room for his man cave. 🙂🙏🏻
When our family was young I put a bakers rack next to the washer/dryer. Each family member had their own basket where laundry was sorted . The original idea was for each person to take their own basket to their room but they often left it on the rack and ran downstairs to get dressed from the basket. Haha! It all worked out!
The biggest game changer for me was training the family to place a large safety pin through the pair of dirty socks when they came off. Then when they cone out if the dryer, there is no missing socks, no matching time! They simply go right into the drawer and continue to stay matched!
My 99 year old mother talks about laundry when she married my dad in 1947. They lived above the general store my dad built. They had no running water or well. So… first she went next door with buckets to get water. Then she heated it up on a wood stove. Then she scrubbed the clothes on a wash board. Then hung out to dry. Then take the clothes in from the line. When she had the basket full in the kitchen, she would enjoy folding because that was the easiest part. (just a little perspective)
Fights on in the closet, just like when we had only one bathroom.
Another less involved strategy we had that helped was to just have two large dirty hampers in a central bathroom, one for lights and one for darks, and everyone sorted their dirty clothes after bathing or before bed into those. That just made washing days more streamlined as the dirty laundry was all in one place. Then clean clothes would be sorted to each person’s basket and set in their room for them to fold and put away. It’s not as comprehensive as the plan in this article, but it may be a step closer to that for those who can’t redo their whole system yet, or don’t have the right set up for it. It’s too late for us…most kids are grown and on their own 🙂
Been Doing this for 25 years where the laundry is in the bathroom. Fresh clothing right there when out of the shower.
My mother did something similar years ago. It was a large folding table in the basement laundry room. Everyone (6 kids) had their own pile ‘on the table’. My bedroom was on the second floor. If we hadn’t retrieved our clothing and relocated it to its proper place in our rooms, we often had to run down two floors to get dressed before school.
You people are so bvdhdh. Each family member should be doing his own laundry. Kids at the age of five can start bringing their clothes to the laundry and put them away, too. At the age of 8 y old they can do their laundry. My kids did, every child can do. Teach your kids to be independent. They won’t have you forever. The “solution” in this article is a shame to the society..
Kids can do their own laundry in the central closet too. This idea is simply a very efficient use of space….no shame in thinking outside the box. What works for one family may not work for another and that’s ok…no shame.
I agree with Donna, not every solution fits every family. The family closet idea would certainly streamline laundry especially with a young family. All my kids know how to do there own laundry, but with the cost of energy in California, I have often asked my older kids to give me any laundry we have to avoid skyrocketing energy/water prices when laundry is being done by 4 separate individuals at all hours of the day. Not to mention the cost of laundry supplies. If it’s important for a family to instill self reliance, one could have their children take turns doing the family laundry. No shame needs to be placed on others.