Simplifying Our Mornings Pt. 1

October 10, 2012 By 3 Comments

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When Vera started 1st Grade in September our mornings had to get started 30 minutes earlier than in the past.  I didn’t want to have to wake the kids up any earlier than necessary, so I evaluated how we were doing things and tried to make things more efficient.

Like Stacey mentioned yesterday, the kids and I prepare their clothes a week at a time and put them in organizers in their closet.

I thought that this was already pretty efficient, but this school year we have even taken that a step further.  In the morning instead of having the kids open their closet to take out their clothes, we pull everything out the night before.  Our 3 little ones in preschool and kindergarten also have to take an extra change of clothes (which makes for even more laundry each day…AAHHH!!!), so this includes preparing their backpacks with a clean set of clothes.

By knowing that we have prepared their clothes and backpacks the night before, we are able to eliminate more stress from our mornings so that things flow smoothly and quickly enabling our kids to get as much sleep as possible before the school day starts.

How do you simplify your mornings to help you get out the door in time with as little stress as possible?

Organizing Outside Play Toys

June 6, 2012 By Leave a Comment

Over the years, we have accumulated several outside play toys from kids’ birthday gifts and Grammie’s great finds at yard sales and on Craigslist.  I love our fenced in back yard.  I love keeping the back door open and watching them play.  I love my kids’ friendships with our neighbors and having lots of kids in the backyard.

But I don’t love how messy our yard can get.  The toys get strewn all over the yard and I haven’t done a great job having the kids clean up before they come inside.  And with our patchy grass, it gets quite muddy out there.  The toys and slides get muddy and filled with rain water and it invites lots of creepy crawly friends (which if you know me, you know I have a big issue with bugs).

So, my dad gave me a big tarp he wasn’t using anymore and I got the idea to use it under a lot of the toys.  I love how it turned out.  We’ve had a good bit of rain this week and it has really helped with the mud.  And the tarp, in general, gives a boundary to that play area.  Karis calls it a “village” and the playhouse is now a restaurant.  I love it!  We’ll see how it holds up through the season.

 Karis was excited to pose in the pictures.  :)

What do you do to manage outside toys?

 

Travel Bags for Children

April 21, 2012 By 8 Comments

We have gone to the U.S. once a year for the last few years.  Next week’s itinerary is our shortest ever at a “short” 19 hours.  Coming back to China it will be about 23 hours.  Both directions are two legs, and only one layover.   Our long flight of about 13 hours is equipped with individual TV’s on each seat with some great children’s programming.  That will keep the kids busy!  Our short flight however will not have individual TV’s, and will last for about 4 hours.  I have to have something for the kids to do!

I’ve learned the hard way that we don’t want to bring any more than the kids can carry on their own.  There’s not much worse than lugging around 4 tired kids, backpacks, carry-ons, and all of their “busy” gear as well!  With all of the traveling that we do, I feel like we have finally found a system that works for us!

Each kid has:

  • Their own backpack.  We try not to pack anything for the kids that won’t fit into their own backpack.  Sometimes we slightly break the rules (more on that later…).
  • We allow each of the kids to take one small comfort item from home.  They all love sleeping with stuffed animals and dolls, so they get to choose their current favorite for the trip.
  • A water bottle.  Let’s face it, kids get thirsty, and no one wants to drag along a thirsty, tired, whiny kid!
  • A few small snacks, depending on the length of the trip.  I don’t usually buy a lot of individual snack sized things for the kids, but for trips like this, they are perfect.  Whenever mommy say, “Okay, it’s time for a snack,” they can pull out one of their snacks.
  • A pair of kid friendly headphones.  The ones we found are big, but they cover the kids ears well and block out background noise while they watch movies.  We are of course careful to monitor that the volume is not too loud. :)
  • A zipper folder of activities to keep them busy during waiting times in the airports, flights with no individual TV, etc.  Figuring out what to put in the zipper folder is always what’s most difficult.  I always want enough to keep them busy but not more than they need.  This is what I packed for this trip.

The girls each got a new art book, a butterfly sticker book, folding paper, a small notebook, and new gel pens and markers to share. I also snuck a reader into each of their bags, but I'm guessing they'll just want to create if mommy doesn't make them read.

The boys each got a blank art book (they love these!), a pack of crayons, a small notebook, a pack of folding paper (which I'm sure they will probably just shred...hey, whatever keeps them busy!), a pack of Ikea stamp markers to share, and small zoo animals.

This is where I break my own rules that the kids things must fit into their backpacks.  They boys have toddler sized backpacks that do not fit these folders.  They will carry all of their own things except for these; Matt and I will each take one for the boys.

Of course, we always need a backup plan.  We have two!

  1. The iPad with great educational apps.
  2. The computer with movies just in case we get stuck waiting in an airport longer than expected and get a little too antsy.

And that’s it.  That’s how we plan to survive during this long trip back to the States.  What do you pack for your kids when you travel?  Do you have any great tips?  

This post shared at Crystal & Company, We ARE that Family, Women Living Well , and Celebrating Family.

Project Simplify: Kids’ Stuff

March 9, 2012 By 6 Comments

Simple Mom is hosting a Spring Cleaning/Organization event this month called Project Simplify and this week’s project is kids’ stuff.  I didn’t tackle all of their stuff (clothes, toys, shoes, art supplies, books, etc.), but decided to focus on giving their rooms a good cleaning and going through the stuff in their closets.  Two challenges we are facing lately with their stuff are:

  1. They just have too much stuff (clothes and toys alike).
  2. I have given them too much access to all their stuff at a young age.
So, I wanted to purge where needed and get a better system for putting their things away.  With just a few days to work on this, I didn’t complete everything I want to do in there.  But I purged, organized, and got a better plan for where to go from here.  We’ll start with Karis’ and Landis’ room:
BEFORE
AFTER
I have small wire baskets under their bed that work pretty well.  They store different kinds of toys and the girls seem to do well with designated baskets like that.
BEFORE

The books look like this most of the time. I realize they are pretty young to set all the books upright. The bags on the wall are for their dress up time that they love and do often. I actually meant to hang that in the closet but just made a mistake in telling Dee where to put it. I want to move it, but don’t want to deal with patching holes in the wall.

AFTER

I’m thinking about a couple options for the books. I could either get baskets for the books to go in that would look a lot nicer. The other thing I’ve thought about doing is hanging shelves on the wall for baskets of books where they can only get down one basket of at a time.  What do you think would work best?

BEFORE
Their closet is always a wreck.  I’ve just had too much stuff in there.
AFTER
I moved all the stuffed animals to the twins’ room which really freed up that shelf.  I put the sleeping bag in its case and stored it under Karis’ bed.  I took all their dress up jewelry out of the jewelry box, put it all in the hanging shoe pocket organizer in the closet, and got rid of the jewelry box.  I kept the shelves for their dolls and the cute hooks on the wall for their dress up hats.  Have I mentioned they love to dress up?  I still need to hang the curtain I bought for the doorway.  Removing their closet door has been great for giving more space.
Now on to the twins’ room:
BEFORE
AFTER
I would like to put updated pictures in their room.  The ones on top of the chest of drawers are still of Karis as an infant!  I also need to get another lamp shade.  I got rid of the one we were using when I got rid of the crib bedding.
BEFORE
  AFTER
I have struggled with what to do with all the Mega blocks we have.  I made the simple decision today that whatever didn’t fit in one box needed to be given away.  I also set up the building table in the corner so they can actually use it.
BEFORE
I have never loved cabinets for clothes.  I just don’t do a good job of keeping them neat and it just ends up in a big messy pile.  I did make the decision to move all the kids’ pajamas into the drawers in the laundry roomthat I now use for sorting.  Since our kids are so young and we usually send Karis to get all the pajamas at night anyway, it doesn’t really make a difference where she gets them.

AFTER
I also moved all the off season clothes from this dresser to the chest of drawers and decided to use this dresser exclusively for toys and all stuffed animals.  We’ll see how this works and right now, I have two empty drawers to work with.
BEFORE
The twin’s closet is pretty big.  It reaches back pretty far on the right and left.  I use it for the twins’ hanging clothes and all off-season, off-size clothes and shoes for all the kids.  It obviously gets out of control.
AFTER
While I didn’t get everything done that I want (as in rearranging the adjustable shelving and purging off-season clothes), I did get a good assessment of what’s in there and got everything cleaned up.  And I got rid of the last of all those extra hangers!  It feels so much better to open those doors!
Do you have any other suggestions to better simplify and organize these spaces?  
Next week’s task on Project Simplify:  Kitchen and Pantry.  Stay tuned!

Michelle’s 29 Day Organizational Challenge Reveal

February 28, 2012 By 18 Comments
I’m organizing our playroom/homeschool room this month and trying to better utilize the space we have in the small room.  If you missed my first post, you can find it here.  Update #1 can be found here, and update #2 can be found here, and update #3 can be found here.

Also be sure to check out Stacey’s laundry and office final reveal here!

Before I take you to the before pictures you’ve already seen, I wanted to take you back even a little further.  I want to take you back to the days before our 4th bedroom was a Playroom/Schoolroom.

We had the two large yellow shelves in the living room…
…the kids would frequently work all together at this little, unstable folding table…
 …and the current schoolroom/playroom was a guest room!
(I had to dig back 4 years to find a picture as the room was so infrequently used.)

In November I decided that I couldn’t handle all of the “stuff” that came with having the large shelves in the living room.  I felt like our living room was caving in on us.  Also, the kids couldn’t leave any school work or crafts out to work on the next day because everything was in the middle of our main living space.  We realized that our guest room is used probably no more two weeks a year, but the things invading our living room were used every day.  So, we disassembled the bed and started moving the shelves and their contents into the room.  The room would no longer be in use only 2 weeks a year, but we’d be able to use it 52 weeks a year!
That’s where orgjunkie.com’s 29 Day Organization Challenge starts.  I had moved everything into the room in November which took care of the problem in the living room, but the “stuff” we had moved in was put wherever there was space without much thought put into how it was organized.
This is where we started this month.
And this is what our playroom/homeschool room looks like now!
I moved lots of things around as the challenge went on.  I wanted some of the kids toys and games more accessible for them and some other things less accessible.

I moved a smaller shelf out into the boys’ bedroom, and moved all of the kids coloring supplies from that shelf to the bottom of this shelf.

Moving that shelf into the boys room gave us just enough space for the dry erase board to be hung in the room!  This is the one and only thing that isn’t finished as we are waiting on a worker with a drill strong enough to can make holes into our cement walls.

I labeled baskets for the first time in my entire life!  The top two shelves are all things that the kids need permission to play with.   The middle shelf has books that the girls are reading.  The bottom two are puzzles and boxes of like toys.

I have my curriculum books on one of these shelves, as well as Confessions of a Homeschooler’s Letter of the Week Curriculumand other printable preschool curriculum on the middle of this shelf.  I added a paper organizer for new and scrap paper for the kids.  Some of the kids books remained on the bottom two shelves.

The completed left wall.

I added an Alphabet Desk Mate to each of the kids’ desks.  One of my girls has a really hard time with handwriting and this has been helping so much!
  I also repurposed some baskets for the kids’ artwork/scribbles/paper junk.  This has helped tremendously in keeping their desks neat, and I’ve given them the rule that if it doesn’t fit into the basket, they have to purge something else to make space.
I organized the supply closet and labeled the boxes.  You can read more about that process in Update #2.

I think this wall is what most excites me about the room!

I created labels for our hanging organizer by finding an image on Google, copying it, and adding text to the image.  Then, I laminated the labels and stapled them to the organizer.  It worked out beautifully! Thanks to whoever gave me that suggestion!  We still have some empty space which my 6 year old insists we need to fill. :)

I’m loving what I did with this shelf space.  I moved things off of these shelves that were in no way helpful in teaching the kids.  The top shelf is now books that the girls have chosen and want Matt and I to read to them ASAP.  The middle shelf is my teacher guides and other Mommy materials, and the bottom shelf is the girls’ school books and materials.  I had the cardboard organizers from Ikea and am using them to see how we like this system.  If we like it, I’ll buy some sturdier ones in the future.  Most exciting is the two recentpictures I added to the shelves using frames that I had purchased 2 1/2 years ago but that still remained empty!  Anyone who knows our home well will realize that I haven’t updated any pictures in a very long time.

And then there are the kids handprints.  I was going to just print out their names and put them on the doors, but we did a little artwork instead.  I decided to use the cabinet doors as a space for each child to display their artwork.  I think they will love this!
Here is one last picture of the completed room!  I’m so happy with the changes that have been made!

Laura at I’m An Organizing Junkie has asked that the 29 Day Organizational Challenge participants answer a few questions about the process:

1. What space did you decide to organize and why?

I decided to organize what I have called the Playroom/Schoolroom.  When we moved things into the room in November, I hadn’t put much thought into how things were organized.  I couldn’t find some things we needed and had been very inconsistent in using the room with the girls because I knew it wasn’t fully finished.  I actually realized during the last week of the challenge that the room truly is a schoolroom that just houses a few toys.

2. What steps did you take to ensure you completed the space within the 29 day timeline?

I looked at what needed to be done in the room, and then broke my projects down into smaller steps each week.  I did the bigger projects like moving things around in the beginning of the month, and the smaller projects like paper organization and labeling I scheduled for later in the month.

3. What was the hardest part of the challenge for you and how did you overcome it?

The hardest part was definitely weeks 3 and 4.  I absolutely despise paper organization.  It can be so well hidden that it’s easy to ignore.  Week 3 was all about paper, and it was hard to keep myself working.  However, I knew that I wanted it done, so I kept pressing on.  It was really an AHHA! moment for me as I realized that all of my organizing projects get put on hold at that point.  Everything in my kitchen is organized expect for my recipes.  Everything in my bedroom is organized except for the three areas that contain paper.  Paper is part of the process too, and I now see that I can’t keep ignoring it.
My main project for Week 4 was labeling.  I almost didn’t do it.  When I started drafting this post and looked back at my goals from Week 1, I saw that I had set a goal that “everything has it’s own well-labeled place”.  I knew I had to do it, and I am so glad that I did!!!  I didn’t label everything, but looked at the things that have consistently been problem areas for us and labeled those.  I know the kids will greatly benefit from the labeling on the hanging organizer, and I will benefit from knowing what goes into which bin or basket!
4. What did you do with the “stuff” you were able to purge out of your newly organized space?
Most of the “stuff” I purged was paper trash.  Four bags of it, actually!  There were a few other things that got purged or moved.  Our old Chinese books are now in a storage cabinet.  Some binders of my husbands were put on a shelf in our bedroom.  Everything else went into a purge pile that gets emptied about twice a year (no Goodwill in China).

5. Tell me one of your proudest moments during this challenge?

My proudest moments were definitely when I finished organizing the paper week 3, when I finished labeling during week 4, and of course at the moment that I could say, “It’s finished!”.

6. Explain any organizing “tools” you used to help you create additional space and to establish some limits and boundaries?

One “tool” that helped us establish limits and boundaries was by labeling problem areas.  I am very confident that the kids will do a great job keeping the hanging organizer organized now that it’s labeled.  The girls and I are both loving the ease of just picking up the magazine holders to get whatever school work is needed.  I purchased 4 new baskets to help organize some of the smaller stuff that previously would get thrown in together, even if the things didn’t belong together.  I was also able to move the smaller shelf out of the room giving the boys a more organized bedroom and making space for the dry erase board in the school room.

7. What is ONE piece of advice you’d give to someone else to encourage them on their organizational journey?

During Week 3 I realized that I needed to keep going even when the going got tough.  My motivation to keep organizing had completely fizzled out.  The things I liked to do were done.  The only things left were the little projects that visually don’t make a big difference.  My one piece of advice would be to write your goals out for the space you are organizing before you get started and don’t stop until you have reached your goals!

When the month started I had four main goals.
  • Everything the kids need is within reach;,
  • Everything they don’t need is out of reach;
  • Everthing has it’s own well-labeled place;
  • The things we don’t need in the room will either be purged or moved.

Not only were my goals accomplished, but I’ve also been able to gain back cluttered shelf space which gives us more space to grow into the room!  Laura, thank you so much for this challenge!  We love our improved schoolroom!

Did you participate in the 29 Day Organizational Challenge?  Leave a comment so that we can be sure to check out your finished rooms!

Michelle’s Organizational Challenge Update #3

February 23, 2012 By 8 Comments
I’m organizing our playroom/homeschool room this month and trying to better utilize the space we have in the small room.  If you missed my first post, you can find it here.  Update #1 can be found here, and update #2 can be found here.

If you missed Stacey’s post of her laundry/office area yesterday, check it out!  I love her use of vertical space to open up the room.

I’ve had a really hard time motivating myself to get back into the playroom/schoolroom to continue working on this month’s organizational challenge.  Do you know why?  I do.  The room is already functional!  This is where my drive to keep organizing usually fizzles out.  Yet, I know there are more things to do to make the room FULLY functional.  The little things.  The things that no one will notice except for me.  I have a few small spaces in our home that are well hidden behind closed doors, spaces that are total chaos if you take a peak inside.  After the main bulk of organization last week, I knew that I still had two small areas of chaos in the playroom.

The first was the folders to the top right of this shelf.  They contain a variety of educational resources, the bulk of it from Confession of a Homeschooler’s Letter of the Week Curriculum.  This is what I refer to as “paper organization”, and let me tell you, paper organization is my weakness!  If it wasn’t for the challenge, I’m quite sure I’d have stopped organizing after last week’s overhaul.

The other thing I especially needed to work on was the hanging organizer behind the door.  It’s full of little stuff that I don’t necessarily have a place for, so things just gets shoved in wherever there is an empty space.

I started by pulling all of the randomness off of the top shelf and spreading it out to see what was there.

Sorry about the quality of the photo.  My husband had the camera with him so I used my phone.  I found all of the things I expected to find as well as stuff that definitely didn’t belong–artwork, birthday balloons, and my to do list just to name a few!

After I got everything put into appropriate folders, I moved them to a shelf that gave me better access to them.

I still have all of the random extra stuff spread out all around the room right now so my job is definitely not done!

Next, I moved on to the hanging organizer behind the door.  Chaos!  This picture shows some of the random things that were just put in wherever by the kids.  I found an empty container that was perfect for all of the stickers and the rest mostly went in that white trash bag!

I pulled a whole pack of toothpicks (many of them cut and broken) out of two of the compartments.  I know…great toys for 3, 4, 5, and 6 year old kids!  I threw away all of the broken ones and put the rest in a ziplock bag AND out of reach of the kids.

I’m still figuring out what I want to put in the organizer, but at least for now everything that is in there is well organized!

After cleaning up the mess that I’ve already started, I still have a few things I need to finish up next week.  The biggest job I still have to do is to get the important things labeled.  I’m definitely going to be adding labels to the hanging organizer to help the kids keep it reasonably organized!

At what point does your motivation to keep organizing fizzle out?  For me, it’s definitely when I get down to the little details like this week!

Are you taking the challenge at I’m an Organizing Junkie this month?  If so, be sure to leave a comment so that we can see your progress!

Michelle’s Organizational Challenge — Update 2

February 16, 2012 By 8 Comments
I’m organizing our playroom/homeschool room this month and trying to better utilize the space we have in the small room.  If you missed my first post, you can find it here.  Update #1 can be found here.
I’m thrilled that the second week of this challenge went much better than the first!  It took quite a while for me to get over the flu and have the energy to work in our playroom/schoolroom.
We changed this room over from a guest room to a playroom/schoolroom in November.  I put a little thought into where I put things at that point, but for the most part, things just ended up wherever they landed the first time.  This week my main priority was moving things so that the placement made sense — moving things I didn’t want the kids playing with up high, moving things out of the room that I didn’t want in the room, and moving some things around to make them more accessible for the kids.
Laura at I’m an Organizing Junkie uses what she calls the PROCESS to get organized.  You can read the full details of it here.
Plan of Attack
Remove Items
Organize into Piles
Containerize
Evaluate Plan
Solve/Simplify any Remaining Issues
Smile, Relax, and Enjoy Your Hard Work!
I wrote about my plan of attack in this introduction post.  This week I especially focused on removing items, organizing into piles, and containerizing.  Because this is a room that gets used every day, I could not remove everything and start from scratch.  Instead it was one little space at a time.
Remember the shelf that I wanted to move into the boys’ room?  Well, I did it, and they couldn’t be happier!
This is the room before:
 And this is after:
The little green baskets in the bottom were sitting empty in the playroom, but are perfect for some of the boys’ smaller toys.
 Their trains and books that were previously in the playroom are now in their bedroom.  When Tobey came home from preschool and saw the changes, he came running, “Mommy, Mommy!  Come look!  There are books in our bedroom!”  Yes, he was happy with the change.
The next thing I needed to do was move things around on the shelves in the playroom/schoolroom.

  • I moved the plastic containers from one yellow shelf to the other.  They were somewhat hidden behind the desks and have barely been played with since we moved them into this room.  By moving those, I’m hoping they will be more accessible for the kids and again played with frequently.
  • I cut up all of the puzzle boxes and put them in ziplock baggies.  They are now all in the green basket.
  • I bought three new baskets to help organize the small stuff.
  • I still have a little work left on these.
  • I moved all of the coloring supplies from the small shelf that’s now in the boys room to the bottom of the shelf below.  Even though the kids purged a few coloring books, they still have too many.  They are in the blue baskets on the bottom shelf.
  • I moved the games from the top of the other shelf to a shelf of their own.  Now I don’t have to stand on a chair to get to them!
  • The top shelf is a lot of the books that I don’t want the kids reading just yet.
  • Since I moved the small shelf out, we now have just enough wall space for the dry erase board.  I just need to get it hung.
The last thing I accomplished this week was organizing the supply closet.  This is what it looked like before.  Ugh…
  •  I took 3 of the 4 bins out and organized the contents.  The first bin contains art projects, the middle bin is really just random stuff that gets used but not often, and the third bin contains craft supplies.  The fourth bin was already organized with math manipulatives for homeschooling.  Some of this stuff was scattered in various places in the closet.  This is a huge improvement, and I found things I had forgotten I had bought!
This is the closet now.  Much improved!
As for purging, this is one of the two bags of trash that got tossed this week:

I’m very happy with the progress I made this week.  Come back next week to see what else I’m planning to do in this room!

Are you taking part in Orgjunkie’s Organizational Challenge this month?  Leave a comment and we’ll be sure to check out your progress?

Michelle’s Organizational Challenge — Update #1

February 10, 2012 By 3 Comments

I’m organizing our playroom/homeschool room this month and trying to better utilize the space we have in the small room.  If you missed my first post about it last week, you can find it here.

As promised, I took a few pictures after we got home from our break in Hong Kong to prove that the room doesn’t always look as good as it did in the pictures I posted last week.

These is the book and homeschool shelves.  Currently, they are not working for me at all!

Okay, so maybe I’m a neat-freak and that my messy is not all that messy.

Unfortunately this week has not gone at all how I planned!  Upon returning from Hong Kong 5 of the 6 of us came down with the nasty cough, cold, flu junk!  Rather than having my husband back at work and my kids back in preschool so that I could get back to a normal routine, the week has been spent lying around on the couch, watching a few too many movies, and trying to nurse everyone back to health.

The big thing I accomplished this week…  Getting my kids to purge a few coloring books.  Yeah, I know, not so big!

I also realized that I would love to somehow “cubby-off” the bottom shelves on the large shelves.  They are great because they store so much, but not so great because they can just become one big mess.  I’m planning to go shopping around next week to see if I can miraculously find some sort of affordable bin that is the perfect size to create three cubbies on a couple of the longer shelves.

Here’s to a healthy, productive week next week!

Go to orgjunkie.com to see more organizing projects!

We’re Taking the 29 Day Organizational Challenge

February 1, 2012 By 12 Comments

We are both excited to be joining along with Laura at I’m an Organizing Junkie for February’s 29 Day Organizational Challenge.  We both felt that we had one room in our house that could use the extra TLC!

Michelle’s Room of the Month: The Playroom/Schoolroom


I’ve posted pictures from our playroom previously in this post on vertical storage.  Those pictures were taken just after the playroom had been cleaned.  While it looks nice to someone who doesn’t know the room, I know of all of the places that need some serious work!  If I wasn’t currently out of town for two weeks, I’d post pictures of what the room looks like today.  Let’s just say that we left home without picking up after ourselves.  I’ll have to take pictures when we get back to show you what it usually looks like! :-)

About 3 months ago this room was a guest room.  All of the stuff in this room was in our living room.  Every single day I felt like the room was closing in on us.  We realized we only had guests a couple of weeks a year and that this room could be used every day if we repurposed it.  We disassembled the bed and moved everything from the living room into the playroom.  It gave us our living room back, as well as a room set aside for the kids and their messes.  I love that at the end of a long day, I can just close the door and ignore the mess.

One problem, however, is that once we moved the toys and books into this room, I stopped there.  I didn’t take it the step further to purge and organize.  For the last three months I’ve been looking at the problem areas wanting to do something with them, but because I can just close the door on the problem areas, I’ve been ignoring them.

What do I plan to do with the playroom this month?

  • We have two large yellow shelves in the room, this one and one on the opposite wall.  This one is the most organized and holds most of the toys.  The other one…well there may be a very good reason that I don’t have a picture of that one.  It’s primarily used for homeschooling resources and is pretty much one big mess right now!  There’s also a third bookshelf with books.
  • We have lots of things on this shelf that do not get played with.  I need to do some purging for sure!
  • The other yellow shelf not pictured has multiple blue baskets (like the one on the top shelf of this picture) that basically have a hodge-podge of unorganized “stuff” thrown into them.  It’s time to organize the “stuff”!
  • I really like the way we use the little shelf to the right, but I would prefer repurposing that shelf for some books in the boys’ room.  Lots of the coloring books are either mostly used or neglected by the kids, so I need to do some purging there before moving things off of the shelf.
  • The middle shelf has mostly puzzles.  Sure, they stack nicely, but there is something that really bothers me about having lots of little boxes just stacked and sitting there.  Does anyone have any good ideas for puzzle organization?
  • The boxes used to be organized and labeled, but after our last trip to the States, I just threw in new things wherever they would fit.  I need to reorganize and relabel the boxes.
  • The top shelf holds several things that we use a lot and some things that are purely junk and got tossed up there.  I need to make that a workable space as I can’t even reach it, and even with a stool I end up knocking things off.
  • The shoe organizer on the back of the door is a great idea if you keep it organized.  I’m slightly afraid to even reach my hands in…not sure what I might pull out of the pockets!  Does anyone have an idea for labeling each pocket on the canvas material it is made of so that things don’t just get put back wherever there is space?
  • Those little shelves could be well utilized, but instead just hold stuff that doesn’t need to be in a playroom/schoolroom.  The top shelf is our textbooks from when we studied Chinese several years ago.  The things on that shelf have not been touched since we moved into this apartment 4 1/2 years ago.  There’s some sentimental value to those books that taught us this difficult language years ago, so I’ll probably just store them away somewhere.

So that’s my plan!  My goals are that:

  • Everything the kids need is within reach;,
  • Everything they don’t need is out of reach;
  • Everthing has it’s own well-labeled place;
  • The things we don’t need in the room will either be purged or moved.
Stacey’s Challenge Room is coming up soon!
Does anyone else want to join us this month in tackling one room of your house?  We’ll be checking back in weekly to give you updates on how things are going and hope that you will be encouraged to conquer a difficult space in your own home!

Organizing Clothes in a Child’s Closet

December 30, 2011 By 8 Comments

A couple of years ago I first heard of the idea of using a hanging shelf to store children’s clothing in their closet.  Stacey actually mentioned the idea of doing that on her post Getting Out the Door in Less Time.  It was that post that finally inspired me to email Stacey and talk about writing together at Getting Through the Day.  I’m so thankful that I did ask her!  As we generate post ideas and talk about possibilities for future posts, I find myself growing in areas that I’ve been stagnant in for a while.  Thanks Stacey for allowing me to share this little space in blog land with you!

Some time after hearing about using hanging shelves in kids closets, I decided to give it a try.  I started with the girls.  At the time I could not find a 7 shelf hanging organizer (one for each day of the week), so they have a 6 shelf organizer.

You can see that they have a very small closet.  If they had tons of clothes this may not work with such a small closet.  There’s a little hanging space for their dresses, and they stock panties, socks, tights, etc. in the drawers below.  I have changed the way I do this with the girls a couple of times.

  • When I first started this with the girls, they would help me pick either tops or bottoms, one for each shelf.  I would pick a matching top or bottom, they’d add panties and socks, and then stock their organizer for the week.  We’d always restock on Sunday evenings, and starting on Monday they’d take out outfits from top to bottom.
  • Now I usually just stock them myself as I finish laundry and the girls pull out any outfit and wear it.
After seeing that this was working well for the girls, I decided to do the same thing in the boys’ closet.
Thanks to the amazing Chinese Taobao (a site in China that sells pretty much ANYTHING I could want), I was able to find 7 shelf organizers for the boys.  Each shelf is more compact which also leaves some space at the bottom for extras.  They also have a little hanging space for nice shirts and keep their undies and socks in the bottom drawers, one for each boy.
There are three things I absolutely love about using these hanging organizers for the kids!
  • There is no thinking about what to wear in the morning.  Within about 10 seconds they decide on an an outfit, pull it out, and start getting dressed.
  • As I finish laundry, I’m able to simply restock the empty shelves.  It’s fast and easy!
  • Do you see all of those extra pants for the boys in the picture?  Yes, I overbought.  Since using the shelves, I have come to realize that I don’t need more than 8 or 9 complete outfits for the kids — 7 for normal days, 1 or two for nicer clothes or an extra set “just in case”.  Truly, anything more is excess, and honestly, if I didn’t like a little variety, I could probably get away with 4 or 5 total outfits per child with the frequency I do laundry.  I have never shopped this way until now.  As I start buying ahead for next winter this clearance season, I’m looking to buy in outfits to avoid pieces that don’t match anything and to stick to 7-9 total outfits per child.  As I look at the excess in the kids’ drawers this winter, I realize that we have far more than we need.
If you are interested in doing something like this in your child’s closet, Amazon has lots of options.
They have 5 shelf options…
…6 shelf options…
…8 shelf options…
…cute kiddie options, and Hanging Organizers""“>much more!
For this stage with the kids, this has been such a time saver and hopefully a money saver for us as well!
What do you do to help keep your children’s clothes organized and to make sure you are not buying more than you need?
Today’s post is linked up to I’m an Organizating Junkie‘s 52 Weeks of Organizing.
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