Day 26 of the 30 Days to Less of a Hot Mess Challenge is here! We’re decluttering, reorganizing and taking a fresh breath of air to create a home we love. If this is your first time joining the challenge, you may want to start here at the beginning. Affiliate links used for your convenience.
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What is a home organizing challenge without talking about kid clutter? And by “kid clutter,” I mean toys that seem to appear out of nowhere and get messy faster than you can say “clean up your room!” If you have kids (or grandkids), you know this one is a hard-fought, uphill battle.
Maybe this sounds familiar? Here are a few thoughts from some of my sweet readers:
“My big decorating challenge is staying organized with a growing toddler – there are constantly outgrown clothes to put away and store, toys on the floor of every room, and new pictures to print or hang!” – Summer
“I have been in my house for 2.5 years and still don’t feel like it’s home. With two small boys (almost 4 and 18 months), I find it so hard to make the living room feel cozy with all the toys. We have a playroom, but they always want to be in the living room, so everything piles up in here. Any ideas for hiding the toys but keeping them within reach for the kiddos?” – Lisa
Ladies, I feel ya!
I know all the moms with grown kids say “embrace the mess; you’ll miss it someday.” But when you’re living in it and stepping on LEGOs and Barbie shoes at every turn, it’s sometimes hard to just enjoy it.
In our home we give away and throw things out a lot, but it can still feel overwhelming at times.
Tips for Keeping Toy Clutter in Check!
1. Hide the Toys. One of the best things I ever did was place a large toy basket in the living room. It’s tucked neatly under my Everett console table on my gallery wall, and it’s the only toy storage in my living area. It can be hard to make the living room look cozy with all the toys. I love this way of hiding the toys while keeping them within reach for the kiddos.
Can you spot the toy basket??
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At the end of the day, we toss every toy left in the living room into the basket, and the room is cleaned up. It takes hardly any time at all. If the basket gets too full, I’ll take it to the girls’ rooms and sort everything out.
This happens about once every 1–2 months, because we *try* to get them to clean up their toys and take them back to their rooms each day. It’s a system that works for me and keeps my living room tidy each night. And it’s simple, which is key!
2. Designate Containers if You Have a Lot of One Thing. Toy storage in their bedrooms is a bit of a different story. If I have enough of one type of toy to fill a basket, I’ll assign the basket to that specific toy.
My older daughter’s room has three (and only three) designated baskets: one for Barbies, one for dollhouse accessories and one for American Girl doll stuff. Everything else can go wherever it wants to (in the bins, of course).
3. Deal with the Christmas Overload. Your kids probably got a pile of stuff for Christmas. Mine did. And their birthdays fall within a week and a half of Christmas, so we get a ton of stuff! It’s time to purge.
If the gifts your child received a month ago still haven’t found a home, it’s time to do a few things.
#1 – Find it a home That may mean you have to get rid of something else, or get rid of the toy itself if you can’t find a place for it. But you must find it a place.
#2 – Consolidate Did your child get something they already had or something very similar? If your daughter has 4 different small princess castles in various shapes or sizes, choose the one she plays with least and donate it! I recently sorted through my daughters’ books and realized we had 3 copies of The Tale of Peter Rabbit. There’s no need to keep them all!
4. Don’t Even Bring It Home. I give back (or get rid of) all the little kids’ meal-type toys we receive. The kids may play with them for a bit, but then they say bye-bye. I’m not going to have a designated bin for “small, cheap toys that will clutter my home.”
5. Rotate Toys. I am very limiting about the toys my kids keep, but it can still feel like a lot sometimes. I’ve recently started rotating the toys they have access to.
Why? Because my kids play better when they have fewer options!!
My daughter’s room when I started. Not too bad, but still needs some work.
Have you ever noticed the phenomenon that happens when you send your child into an overstuffed room or cluttered playroom, and they last maybe 5 minutes before coming back out to say they can’t find anything to play with!?
Then you start cleaning up the room, and all of a sudden they’re mesmerized by a doll they forgot about under a pile of dress-up clothes. It may be a clever ploy to get out of cleaning, but I find that when my daughters’ rooms are cleaned and decluttered, they’ll play in there for hours!
Her room with the stored toys in the clear bin.
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So I’ve started packing up a large, clear tub of toys and stowing it away for about a month. Then I’ll bring those toys back out and put another bin away. It’s like they got a gift all over again, and they play with these “just-broke-out-of-baby-jail” toys.
This system keeps our home less cluttered, and my kids play so much better on their own when they have less!
6. Store the Baby Toys. I regularly go through my daughters’ toys and remove the ones that are really too young for them. Of course, when my oldest outgrows her toys, they get passed down to my younger daughter. But all the baby toys go up to the attic.
Tip: When you put toys away for a younger child or a future child, remove the batteries. Otherwise they can corrode and ruin the toy. (I know from experience. #newmomfail)
The Messy Work: Choose one area or category from your kid’s room and declutter! Use your free printable organization checklist to keep track of what you’ve tackled and what’s left to do!
Messily yours, Laura
Ready to find peace in your home again?
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