Why do the best toys come with a gazillion pieces? Who needs a 152 piece tool set? And a 1,001 piece hair decorating kit? Apparently, my kids do.
Sometime in the past 5.5 years since I’ve become a parent, I’ve noticed a disturbing trend in my home. We have clutter. More specifically, toy clutter.
Everywhere.
Needless to say the potential for mess in my house is high. Before you lose all hope, don’t worry. Recently we tackled the clutter in my son’s room and made it a place where we’re all happy. You can keep those 152 piece tool sets AND tackle clutter. Your child can easily find their toys all while you enjoy a clean, peaceful home. I’ll show you how!
How To Tackle Kids Clutter
Just because you want a clutter-free home doesn’t mean you have to throw all the toys away. You can tackle clutter in a short time by doing two things:
- Create a home for the clutter
- Organize it
This is what my son’s room looked like before. Books, toys, and little pieces of puzzles everywhere.
Now after creating a home for the clutter and organizing it, his room looks like this:
My son’s room is now a fun place where we can both come and enjoy spending time together. He can easily find his toys and I’m not stressed over a huge mess. This is how it’s supposed to be! You can have a space like this in your home & I’ll show you how to do it!
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Easy Ways To Tackle Kids Clutter
Give the clutter a nice home. We created a home for my son’s clutter by purchasing a new storage unit (similar to this one
Choose your furniture wisely. One key to tackling clutter is choosing furniture that will easily tame the mess while creating a fun and calm place to play. Choose furniture that takes up a small footprint on the floor but is able to hold a lot. The unit we chose can hold a LOT of toys and it barely takes up any floor space.
Choose furniture that will grow along with your child. We chose the white finish since most of the other furniture in his room was white. As he grows older and his interests change, the furniture will change along with him. When the days of toys cars and planes are over the bins can be cleaned out and converted to fit his future interests.
A mix of open shelves and covered storage is best. Open shelves will focus direction onto special items you want to highlight while giving the child easy and quick access. This is the best place to store items your child plays with everyday. Open shelves can also house awkwardly shaped toys. The bins can help harness and hide the mess of smaller items. Bins are perfect places to house very small toys like Legos, toy cars, and that 152 piece tool set.
Create easy access for the most used toys. Toys that are used most frequently need to be placed right at the child’s level. Since my son is only two and not tall enough to reach the top shelf, I put all his most popular toys in the bins on the bottom.
Make your furniture multitask. We also use this shelf for the lamp, clock, and air purifier.
Categorize. Each bin creates a “home” for different types of toys. No more endless piles with a gazillion pieces everywhere. I placed all of my son’s trains in one bin, all the airplanes in another, and all the small cars in another. Since each bin creates a home, specific toys can be easily found when it’s time to play!
Make it easy to clean up. Having toys categorized makes it easier for the child to participate when it’s clean up time. As you can see from the photo below, my son can easily clean up all the trains in a snap by just throwing them back in the bin!
We liked this storage unit so much, we bought four more! One for the office, two for the basement and one for my daughter’s room. I think I’m going on an organizing frenzy!
Now it’s your turn!
Here’s an attainable challenge for you: find one area in your home with toy clutter and decide to get it organized this week. Next week, choose another area and do the same thing. Keep doing this until your problem areas are addressed. Next thing you know your whole house will be more organized and you’ll have time to enjoy time with your little ones!
See–wasn’t that easy?
What are some ways you deal with kids clutter? Leave a comment below and share your favorite tip to share with others!
This post linked to: Weekend Wind Down, Saturday Sharefest, Show Me Saturday, Skip The Housework, Think and Make Thursday, and Best DIY Projects and Recipes.
I have three kids (DS11, DD9, DD6). I’m a single mom and I work part time, and when I’m home, I’m usually cooking or folding laundry between getting them to all their “places” and helping with homework. I have lots of bins, lots of square storage units, and still a lot of clutter. It was much easier for me to keep on top of it when being a stay at home mom was my only job and my kids were younger and frankly had less stuff. I’ve found that toddlers and preschoolers are much more cooperative with picking up after themselves, but as they get older, and all our lives get busier, it takes a lot of personal commitment from everyone in the family to keep things tidy. Having a place for everything is a good first step, but having a family plan to keep things there is key. I don’t have that plan yet. The best I’ve come up with is to have “pick-up” bins in my downstairs unit that “collect” each of the kids’ toys and other items. When the bins get full, I dump them in their rooms upstairs and they have to put their things away there. Ideally I would do this once a week, but all too often life gets in the way. But keeping things neat is nearly a necessity for my sanity. We do the best we can and I’ve learned to adjust my expectations. And I do my best to take advantage of my “kid-free” weekends to catch up and especially toss stuff that needs to go in the trash or to good will.
Christy I have a lot of respect for you as a single mom. I hope you know how much your role in your kids life matters! I love your idea of having a family plan. That way everyone participates and you aren’t left to do it all.
These are great space savers! I’ve got so much toy clutter and I just can’t decide where I’d place these lovelies. This is sooooo much help!
Having a place like this to put toys really helps you take control over the chaos. I’m so glad this was helpful, Pria! Thanks for taking the time to let me know 🙂
A place for everything and everything in it’s place! Great tips!!
As a normally messy person, I’ve found that saying pretty helpful! So glad you enjoyed these tips Susen!
Great job! I just bought something similar for my kids room. Thank you for linking up to Family Fun Friday! I hope you join again.
Aren’t those storage units great?
Great job! I just bought a similar cubby to start tackling my kid’s room!
Thank you! The cubby will give you a great place to start!
All great ideas. With my three young kids clutter has taken over out house as well. It’s especially difficult to organize when all little pieces are all over the living room lol. Love the organization center you put together. XOXO, Elif
I have two kids so I can only imagine the clutter that comes with three! I’m so glad this was helpful Elif!
Great tips Carrie! Toys can be overwhelming so it is important for me to keep them “contained”. Thanks for sharing on Show Me Saturday!
I’m with you Lindsay–I feel so much better when toys are contained! I think it makes it more fun for the kids because they know where to find their favorite toys.
Great, great post! Because our old home sold in less than 11 years we are in a rental home until the new house is ready for us! Therefore, my oldest two kiddos (girl, 11 yrs & boy, 10 yrs) are sharing a bedroom. It’s been…..chaotic, to say the least and so Im not sure where to begin!!! I need help organizing everything from dresser drawers, closet, under beds, and just general shared room tips for keeping things tidy!!!
I’m so glad this was helpful Emily! You can use these methods both for your rental home and your new home!
Looks great!
I try to get bins to organize toys too. Sometimes it works.
Great tips! It looks so much better after!
I agree–it does look a lot better afterwards. Thank you!
I love the way the toys are so open for him to use yet looks nice. I have a grandchildren room that needs this! Stopping by from Saturday Sharefest! Sandra from Scrumptilicious4You!
I agree that it looks nice & is very functional. This would be the perfect way to store toys for the grandkids! They’ll love coming over to your house!
Carrie, I love this! I love organizing my clutter, specifically toy clutter, it makes me feel so accomplished! 🙂 It’s the little things in life! I have become obsessed with baskets, bins, and shelves to store the stuff. Once a week I do a great big organize so the clutter doesn’t creep back in. 🙂
Saying hello from the party bunch link party and I hope that you are doing great!
Cathy
I love your plan of organizing a little each week so the clutter doesn’t take over! Regular maintenance really does make a difference!