Most of you know our unique living arrangement. We are family of five living in a cozy TWO bedroom house… all up in each other’s bizness.
Our three kids all share a room and have for about a year or so. They don’t have a large room, either, so fitting all the furniture in is like a challenging game of Jenga and leaves us with NO empty walls.
We have one good sized Toy Box with an attached bookshelf as well as four attached itso cubes.
Yes, I am aware that it is a disaster.
Three kids in a room means that we have to be brutal when it comes to purging stuff. Otherwise it begins to take over {see above} and the annoying twitching starts again. :) There have been many, many toy box clean outs in our five years here. Most of the time the discarded toys haven’t been entirely cast out. Instead they have endured the extreme heat and chill of the lonely attic for a year or three before we finally make the hard choice to give them the final boot out the door. :)
Organizing ANY part of your house isn’t EVER a one time experience, of course. The only chance I have to really make it work is when I make the DAILY decision to put things where they go instead of the easier choice to just stuff it any old place as long as it’s out of my darn sight already.
Last year, as part of the BFOL 21 day Organizing Challenge, we cleaned out the Toy Box Disaster, and I had to resist all the organizational inspiration container methods because our wild Wade could not seem to control his compulsion to dump any container of like objects… beautiful or not. :) Instead of awesomely sorted bins of their toys, I instead had to dump them all in the giant cavernous toy box. I did claim the very small victory of keeping the small cars in a box on the bookshelf. I must find joy in the small wins.
As luck would have it, now that Wade is at the point where he’s NOT the amazing dumping machine, his little mini me has graciously accepted the role.
Isn’t that just so nice of him??
I have recently given up on his little basket of Davis toys. It got unceremoniously dumped with everything else into the community free for all. I simply couldn’t handle one more gleeful and mischievous dumping of the basket full of toys spread all over the hallway floor ready to trip the next unsuspecting passerby.
In January I had a small spark of last year’s organizing bug and decided it was definitely, probably time to attack the Toy Box once again.
I employed those same three hoarders to go through all that crazy stuff and pick what we could clear out!
Well, I guess that isn’t completely accurate since the Davis Man was pretty much the OPPOSITE of being on board with my great plan. He decided to enact his own plan of grab and distribute whatever toy he deemed desirable, and let me tell you it seemed as though ALL of it looked good to him. :)
Wade got the very important role of ‘under the bed recon.’ There was quite a bit of grunting and shifting and maneuvering with much encouragement from me to keep going and recover EVERYTHING that had gone under the bed to die! :)
All that recon and effort paid off, cuz we ended up with lots of things to clear out!
With all that stuff gone, we were left with a MUCH nicer looking Toy Box…
Mickey and Minnie are MUCH happier as well, now that their dominion has been put to rights. They prefer to have their Toy Box Kingdom nice and orderly, for it’s much easier to keep their toy minions in line that way, you know.
Isn’t it amazing what a little child labor can accomplish?
Ah, I think that twitching has momentarily stopped!
:)
Do you have beautifully organized and sorted bins of toys for your little ones, or do you dump ‘em all together like me?
Don’t forget! As well as being Wild Wade’s big #4 birthday, tomorrow is also the day that all blogland has been living in wonder about. Google Friend Connect is going buh-bye! If you haven’t already, take a sec and pick another way to follow along… subscribe in a reader, or follow along on the fun through facebook.
Don’t wanna lose any of you awesome people!
Me too! The toys’ home is a cupboard, but cleaning out a cupboard is almost as easy as dumping a box… :( I routinely remove all toys to the upstairs and then bring down only a FEW “new” ones. Somehow, they seem to migrate. I hate stepping over toys all the time! :) I divided our toys into three boxes and rotate them every month or so. They get “new” toys and mom doesn’t have to step on lots of toys that no one is playing with (but they still have to be dumped, of course!).
I totally feel it! However, I’m usually the one getting stuff out from under the bed….one day, you’ll see my twin boys on Hoarders! So I have to do secret, solo, decluttering missions.
Well, my kids are dumpers, so I long ago learned there’s not much point in keeping things terribly separated and organized. I do, however, make sure that ALL their toys can fit in one bin (for each kid’s own toys). If it can’t fit, then it’s time for a trip to Goodwill! A friend of mine who is a cleaning guru gave me the tip that every month I can get a trash bag full of stuff to donate, and it’s true! HOW does stuff accumulate like that?!
Wow! It looks so great; I can’t believe all the stuff you were able to purge…one of the best feelings ever! :)
Way to go Renee!! Nowadays the toys are sorted (well, mostly) into different boxes and bins. My boys are especially fanatical about this. It’s really funny. Now for Lydia? She couldn’t care less. She is my very disorganized child, lol. =) When we lived in an itty bitty duplex when Lydia and Caleb were little, we definitely had a “dump it all together system” because there just wasn’t room for anything else. =)
I’m very amazed at how you can keep everything whittled down enough to keep them all in one bedroom. You are awesome! =) And I think I need a lesson or ten on how you do it! We don’t have a ton of stuff, but I definitely think it could be less and easier to manage.
Ok, I just wrote a novel. Happy Wednesday!! =P
When we lived in cramped quarters, I was forever clearing out toys, books, and clothes. Once in awhile I would store toys to rotate them with other toys later.
Now that we live in a bigger house, I have to watch that I don’t let the toys accumulate. My youngest is almost 8 though, so the things that older kids and teens are interested in seem to be smaller than the stuff that littler children like.
I have a yard sale every year and put old toys in it. It is sad to me now that the kids have grown out of some classic toys that I just can’t seem to part with. This was the first year I told my husband, “I want to save that for grandkids.” YIKES! Makes me feel old. :)
Great job, it looks nicely organized. You did come up with a big pile of things that cleared out. I know it is not easy trying to organize with little ones. But once you have accomplished the task it feels really good.
Looks great. We have three children (girls) that share one room and we just recently decluttered just about every little ol’ toy out of there. Yes, I’m a mean momma. They have all of their books (we STRONGLY encourage reading)and a few of their toys. The rest are in our unfinished bonus room. They have to ask to get toys from there and they must be returned. Its been a HUGE help with the daily toy and closet dump that we were experiencing. They appreciate their treasured toys much more. :)
However, we still need to purge a few more things. It’s definitely an ongoing process.
I can totally relate since all three of our kiddos are in one room too! We just purchased a new cubicle-type shelf for their toys and that is next in line on my to-do-list of projects. I don’t know if I’m brave enough to post a before picture though–but I’ll be sure to let you know how the after turns out! =) Great post–thanks for sharing!
Where did you find the toy box with shelving? I love it!
We were fortunate to be given that! It was originally white with purple sponge painting and flowers. Since we have moved, I have painted it again… a bright aqua! The previous owners even told me that it originally had shelving all the way up, but their kids were climbing up it and they were worried it will fall, so they chopped off most of the shelf part. :)
Wow that was unusual. I just wrote an incredibly long comment
but after I clicked submit my comment didn’t show up.
Grrrr… well I’m not writing all that over again. Anyway, just wanted to
say superb blog!