Want to know where I was a little hopeless? The playroom. More specifically, all of the toys that I always seemed to be gathering up at the end of the day to stash away in the playroom. I wish I could tell you the number of hours I’ve spent arranging and rearranging the playroom, picking up all of the toys and putting them back into their space, over and over and over again.
The playroom was one of those things that could have been easily left in a mess. No one sees it, and we lived with the logic, that the playroom will always be a mess. After reading The Life Changing Magic of Tidying Up, I had a different attitude about the situation and decided to go into it with the same method we had been applying to everything else in our house. Plus, I thought about the message I was sending the kids by not requiring any real responsibility over this space.
By only keeping the things that brought joy (to the kids, obviously) and by giving everything a place, we managed to do the unthinkable and organize the playroom in a functional and successful way. When I tell you everything gets a place, I mean an easy and accessible place. Everything can be seen now, and even though I had a little trouble making the transition, I switched out my pretty fabric bins for plastic tubs that have proven to be extremely functional.
Let’s take a look.
We have a big space for the playroom, it’s actually a bonus room above the garage. I think we’ll eventually transition to a den and add better seating and make it a great space for movie nights. Fair warning, it isn’t at all decorated, I finally feel like I can start that process now that it is functional and organized.
There is a little hall and a closet right before you enter. This closet is perfect for storing things like games and puzzles (I try to rotate the puzzles), art supplies, and learning manipulatives. You’ll see I invested in a label maker to give us all a little more accountability about where we put things after we use them.
Here’s another look:
We purged a majority of the toys in the playroom. I tried to make sure everything fit into one of these categories:
Educational: Books/Puzzles/Games
Make Believe: Dress-Up/Role Play/Dolls/Kitchen/Doll House
Building: Lego’s/Blocks
Transportation: Cars/Planes/Trains
Sports
Music
Favorites: Each child has a tub for favorites, the tubs aren’t huge, so BK really had to think about what she wanted to keep. However, most of her things did fit into other categories.
I mentioned earlier that we went with the plastic tubs rather than the fabric bins. I definitely don’t love the look as much, but it has made things so much easier, I’m sold.
These things are my favorites, Allen built each of these for Braylen. I think Judson will end up with his first creation for Christmas this year. I’m crossing my fingers for a lego table.
It’s a great space, and I think we’ve enjoyed it more in the past few weeks than we have in the three years we’ve lived here prior. I do get a good bit of side-eye about this space, and the comments about kids never being able to put the stuff back or it being more work for the adults. We’ve found the opposite in our situation, especially with Braylen. She’s pretty proud of it nice and clean and likes to keep it that way. We’re constantly working on the get out what you want to play with and put it up before you move on mentality.
Oh, and I almost forgot to mention. All the toys live in the playroom now. No, toy boxes in the living room anymore.
Details:
Everything wooden was built by Allen
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I love all the organization in here-the label maker makes my heart flutter ; ) I adore labeling things for my kids and it does make it so much easier for them to know where items go when they are done. Good job, Mama!
Thank you!! The label maker definitely brings joy 🙂
I just read Marie Kondo’s book and I remembered you wrote various posts about it. I have 3 kids now and I’d like to know if you still believe this method can be applied with children effectively. Marie Kondo doesn’t really address the fact that children are messy and her book seems to be targeting single adults. I find my oldest son (6) to be kind of a hoarder and he refuses to let go any of his stuff. I really don’t want to force him into throwing things away but it is clear that he doesn’t play with everything he owns. How did you manage this process with BK at the time? Thanks!