It's almost August, which means that college freshman all across the nation are preparing their packing lists before they go to their universities in the fall. While your son or daughter is likely very excited at the idea of being on their own for the first time, you may be less thrilled to have your little one leaving the nest. After all, this often means that you'll be seeing and hearing from them less often, and will no longer be there to help them every step of the way. 

But having one of your children move out of the house is not all bad. This can be the perfect opportunity to take on an organizational project that you've been putting off for years. Since your kid will be packing up most of the things that they really need, you can encourage him or her to put the rest of it into storage, freeing up the untidy corners of their room that have been bugging you for years. 

Rather than letting your annoyance at the mess they leave behind bother you for several months until you make your son or daughter spend their vacation cleaning up their old bedroom, use this time to really redesign the entire space. 

Particularly if theirs will be the only spare bedroom in the house, you might want to take them shopping for new decor items like a comforter or Hunter Douglas window treatments. If you do this together, you're sure to pick a grown-up style that your child likes, and one that is neutral enough to make the room into a guest space as well. 

However, one of the areas of your child's bedroom that you should focus on most is the closet. Since your son or daughter will probably be moving home for winter break and during the summers, you want to make sure that you have enough space for them to bring all of their clothes and possessions home. This is a great time to implement a custom home organization system for their closet, which will allow your child to separate their current clothes from the items that they want to keep from over the years. 

Depending on how you set it up, it will also be a convenient place for guests to put their clothes, particularly if they're staying for a while.

Certainly, the idea of sending a child you love off to college for the first time can be difficult to adjust to, but it's also a tremendous opportunity to improve the overall decor of the room where they live, which can make it more versatile. Rather than nagging them about it in a year when they've forgotten which things they really want to hold on to, encourage your child to do all the organizing now, making the next four years of moving into and out of the house as simple as can be. 

The organization experts at Bazaar Home Decorating are particularly skilled in making use of all the available space in a closet. Schedule a Shop At Home appointment today to make sure that you are making the most of the space that's available to you. We can come up with a solution to organize some items while leaving plenty of space left for your child's new clothes.