Going vertical with storage (it always works!)

Well hello! I have a super quick, but SUPER effective organizing project today! This will apply to those of you who have children obsessed with Nerf guns. In our house the tiny little Lego pieces have (mostly) been replaced with the Nerf bullets that we find every-freaking-where in our house. 

Everywhere. 

😆

Our son used to be a huge Lego fan but as he gets older he's switched to Nerf. For every birthday and holiday that's his request. Our home has also become the place where his buddies house some of their guns too, so we have quite the collection. 

My son has been begging me to figure out a better solution for the storage. For a couple years we've had them in a bin in the little closet under the stairs: 

But this is how it looked on a good day. The games and the Nerf stuff got intermingled and most days this closet was a big mess. It drove me crazy and although he did try to keep everything put away, the bin wasn't working. There wasn't enough room and to get one out they had to remove everything. Plus we had smaller guns and accessories in bins in another part of the room, so things were all over the place. 

We found some ideas for Nerf storage that were fun and seemed like great options and all of them involved hanging them on a wall. At first we were going to do it in the garage, but I realized that would be a pain for the kids to run out and then take them down to the basement (where they play with them all winter). 

So I decided to move some things around and make this little closet work. And it is AWESOME! I moved the games to our storage closet:

We have empty shelves in there because of this major purge I did last year. Love. :) 

I grabbed some small pegboards from Home Depot and because this closet is not finished, I was able to screw them right into the studs. The end result? GLORIOUS: 

If you have finished walls you just need to screw some 1x2 boards into studs vertically and then attach the pegboards to those. You can't hang these right against drywall because the hooks won't go into the board. These pegboards are smaller and perfect for a project like this -- the bigger ones are so large and bulky. Each one of these was $7 and I believe they are two feet by four feet. 

I grabbed these hooks to hang everything: 

They are the perfect hook for the Nerf guns -- here are some that are the same size. I also ordered these locks that go over the hooks as well. They are great because they keep the hooks in place when things are taken on and off.  

Most of the Nerf toys have hooks but those that don't can just be hung by the handles:

I almost went horizontal and stacked the two pegboards, but then a majority of the bottom board would have been at the floor, so I would have lost hanging space. Hanging them vertically makes the bottom part usable. 

We took two of the storage bins and filled one with the accessories and one with bullets. Now there's no question exactly where everything goes when it's time to clean up the meeellions of bullets: 

Side note -- see the air hockey table there? Last year I added wheels to the end of it so it's easy to roll in and out of the closet for storage: 

One of my best moves ever, not gonna lie. ;) 

Our son is SO stinking thrilled with this closet and he's crazy proud of it. It's the first thing he shows friends when they come over. It's been a week now and everything has stayed organized...this is a record for the Nerf stuff! 

I know most don't probably have a dedicated closet for something like this, but if you are trying to find a good spot for these awkward toys, this may be a good option for a wall in any closet. I've also seen these done out in the open in toy rooms or family/basement spaces and it's a fun way to display and organize them. 

Every time I go vertical with storage I find it works so much better! And having them easily accessible means they are easier to put away! Hopefully this gives you ideas if you're dealing with the same Nerf problems. ;) Have you figured out a way to organize something awkward like these? I'd love to hear about it! 

Here's an image to pin if you'd like to save this idea for later!:

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