Comments on: Toying with my Space

By: AmyK

AmyK — Mon, 29 Dec 2008 03:47:37 +0000

My first reaction to this post was “That sounds like SO much fun to figure out!” I think the “nice looking place to store toys in the living room” and “rotate them” ideas would work well in your house. Anyway, I am a total geek about this stuff, so if you ever want to have an “organizing” day, definitely give me a call

By: Rina

Rina — Sun, 07 Dec 2008 14:20:52 +0000

Wow, I can TOTALLY relate to this! Right now, all of our toys are banned to the basement until the kids learn to pick up after themselves. I’ve been rewarding them each time they remember to put something away upstairs (blankets picked up from the bedroom floor, shoes put in their proper place, etc.) with allowing them to bring ONE toy bin upstairs to play with. If I find the toys left in the floor when they’re done, back downstairs they go!!! It’s slow going, but we’re getting there! As for bins, I also use tupperware but we use smaller bins and divide up the toys. For instance, large cars go in one bin, small cars in another. If I have more cars than can fit into two bins, we get rid of some cars! As Sabine said, we do have the \overlapping toy\ problem with this system, though, so it’s not perfect. Well, it’s not perfect for more reasons than this but that’s a whole ‘nother issue! I hope you’ll keep us updated on how things are going with your situation, because I’d love to know if you find something that works!

By: Mrs. Parunak

Mrs. Parunak — Sun, 09 Nov 2008 00:47:02 +0000

Cynthia,

Thanks for your encouraging words and ideas! It was great to hear from you. (I always see all new comments, so don’t worry about commenting on old posts.)

By: Cynthia

Cynthia — Sat, 08 Nov 2008 19:25:32 +0000

I’ve only just found your website today and I love it. Perhaps you are no longer looking at comments on this post but it so reminded me of when my first two children were young and our house was small that I wanted to answer you. We used the rubbermaid plan too, which I don’t think is all bad, particularly since you have a basement to hide the bins. The system I used to keep things in order was to ROTATE the bins. For a few days (or however long I determined) the boys were allowed to play with only the toys in one bin. I did this to minimize the mess, but there ended up being several built in bonuses. Clean up was simple: everything went back into one bin and the bin was put in the closet (or basement, in your case). There was no back and forth (up and down the stairs) changing of toys according to the whims of the children. I had 6 or 7 bins, so by the time an old bin came into circulation again, the toys had a novel feel to them and the children were more interested in playing with them. (I always kept a variety in one bin – at least one ball, one puzzle, one artsy thing, a couple stuffed animals-you get the idea). It worked nicely for us; I hope it’s a helpful idea to you.

By: Organizing Mommy

Organizing Mommy — Thu, 28 Aug 2008 18:09:35 +0000

Wow, thanks for the great “linking” Mrs. P. I like all of the suggestions. In a nutshell, see if your hubby will let you invest in something pretty–classy for the livingroom that keeps toys for you. If your self esteem is in the toilet by having a messy house, it may be worth the investment of helping kids keep things under control. You have to understand how you’re wired also. Even though I write a lot about organizing, I do not consider it to be the end-all be-all of life. Having Jesus, having happy kids, having enough sleep and food are far more important in the big picture.

You probably don’t want the kids to play in the basement by themselves, right? You probably want some of the toys upstairs, especially in the winter. So, let’s see if we can make it pretty–classy, helpful and happy. Make the livingroom toys be on a constant rotation–every 2 months or every week change them out. If child 1 wants to always combine a lego car with an alligator and a few blocks–fine. Just throw them in a bag together. I realize this is “your sphere” and this is “your job” to keep this going. But anyone who judges you for having toys all over the place while you’re raising children probably doesn’t understand the big picture of child raising. I have had people come into my house and say “this looks cluttery to me”.. (recently. not even way back when I had an excuse).. And then I just laugh out loud and say, “that’s good compared to what is was before!” I decided WAY BACK to not let people’s opinions get in the way of my self esteem.. whatever that is…

By: Kim from Canada

Kim from Canada — Wed, 27 Aug 2008 15:01:17 +0000

This looks to be a very common issue for moms, doesn’t it?
Our upper duplex is, obviously, not fitted with a basement storage area, but I use the laundry room in the same manner you described. All the other ladies’ suggestions are good, the one that I would add is the use of old dressers for storage. This is particularly good for toys of small pieces (i.e. lego) and craft items. The drawers keep the items contained just as well as a bin, but kids can get into it with more ease (both opening and putting away) – the bins tends to get stacked and then it is harder to use them.
It is a never ending task involved in keeping our homes – I agree with Kathi A. in that sometimes we just need to be more humble when we have visitors. After all, we can’t hide the fact that the kids live with us! ;o)

By: Mrs. Parunak

Mrs. Parunak — Wed, 27 Aug 2008 13:32:56 +0000

I am so enjoying everyone’s ideas, and it’s very encouraging to know that I’m not the only one who has to figure these things out. (I suspected that was true when I wrote the post, but it is nice to know for sure.)

And I just want everyone to know, Vicki is right, Jewels’ blog is beautiful! I’m sure I will be visiting often.

By: botanyhead

botanyhead — Wed, 27 Aug 2008 12:20:47 +0000

I was going to suggest Sabine’s solution. We don’t have a basement but I do a modified version of this system. We have a pretty basketry toy box that I bought from basketlady.com. The boy’s toys live there…excepting certain things which I box up: legos, blocks, the train set, drawing implements… Those things are in small boxes and labeled but, I still don’t know where to store them. Right now they live scattered around the house in different places. As for paring down the toys…I do that fairly ruthlessly at least twice a year, Seasonal Scrub, spring and fall. It sounds intimidating but, I’ve found that there is nearly always a class of things that are easy to identify as cullables: the broken toys, toys I don’t like my kids playing with that the lady at McDonald’s gave them, things we have duplicates of, stuff my kids never, ever use…etc. Use your own elimination system and then you can pare down a few things for sure.

I also remember as my mama taught me, sending things to Goodwill isn’t a mark of being un-frugal….its a way to share what God’s given you with people around you. Stores like Goodwill and Salvation Army, and those like you and I who bring them donations make things available to people who could otherwise never afford them. That seems like a pretty godly thing to be a part of to me.

I’m not much help on the attachment to special items, my kids aren’t really old enough yet.

By: Vicki

Vicki — Wed, 27 Aug 2008 08:18:58 +0000

Just had a thought do you read Jewels blog http://eyesofwonder.typepad.com/my_weblog/ they did live in a lovely little house with 10 children, she writes beautifully and has some lovely photo’s of her family.

By: Vicki

Vicki — Wed, 27 Aug 2008 08:14:35 +0000

Ok, I live in the UK in a VERY small house (I say that because often what American’s call small houses are huge compared to ours lol!!) Meaning no disrespect to American’s – I have many who are very good friends!

All of our children sleep in one pretty small bedroom, so there’s no real room for storing toys in there, that just leaves our bedroom upstairs and a very small bathroom and there’s really no room there either. Downstairs we just have the living room and kitchen (no basement or anything) so we really do LIVE and homeschool in our living room, so any toys the children play with are in the living room. We de-clutter regularly and if the toys aren’t being used they go, I don’t particularly like the look of plastic containers in the living room, so we use baskets with handles to store toys in – they are placed strategically under the coffee table, on/under the piano, in the corner. We have to be really strict in when they’ve finished playing with something it goes away in the basket before another toy comes out or as you say the house looks like a bomb site (not great for making guests feel welcome!) Our house is clean/tidy however most very definitely lived in by a family. At the end of each day the children do a sweep of the living room, putting toys in the baskets and putting the baskets in their places so the house is de-cluttered for dad returning from work, so he can relax.

Hope you decide on what will work best for your family and your situation.

Blessings
Vicki