Cleaning the Play Room….after the kids have trashed it.
Recently I wrote a post for Mouths of Mums called Storage solutions for toys; it’s time to put the toys away! You can get the general idea by reading at the link above. It will give you an idea of what toy storage systems I have used over the last 14 years.
Like most parents, I have had my fair amount of trials when it comes to sorting and storing toys in our playroom, hence upon writing the above I decided to do a cull, clean and sort all the toys including trying out a newer system in our playroom.
In order to keep things tidy, less toys are the better (after all, toys do seem to multiply at every birthday and Christmas time). During the de-clutter mode I was in, I managed to throw out a lot of junk and broken toys including the three storage containers. I also gave away books and toys to charity. It was also amazing what I did find amongst the mess.
Normally I would make the children clean up a mess like this, however it got so OUT OF CONTROL that something drastic needed to be done.
Only the day before, I went into Office Works (looking for a sharpener) and managed to stumble on a bargain ~ $3 each for these Keji containers. (I think IKEA sell them too), so I got 4 of them (I think I paid nearly $10 each for those wheelie bins).
Upon cleaning out the toy box area, I found some interesting objects (and rubbish). I even found some missing socks that I thought the washing machine had eaten.
I also found this little hand and I came across the ‘other’ half only after I went through the entire doll collection.
She will be going to the tip as I don’t do doll surgery. |
So after emptying the toy box and giving it a vacuum, I was amazed that the Keji containers actually fit snug inside (I didn’t even measure them or the toy box before I went shopping).
My puzzle box was all over the place too and as I sat on the floor, (like a little kid again) doing the puzzles, the following idea came to my mind:
Purple ~ dress-ups, Pink ~ dolls clothes/blankets, Red (short) ~ boy toys and Right Red ~ cars/truck and roads map/mat. |
Inside of the toy box. Back left ~ Mega blocks & Lego, Back Middle ~ Train Set, Back Right ~ Puzzles Front left ~ Bits and Pieces. |
Look at the bookshelf now. |
As usual the dolls never have clothes on! |