mon eclaire: The Great Playroom Clean-out

Our play room has gotten out of hand over the last year or so with all the toys and knick knacks. I sent the kids to my parents’ house for a short week at “Camp Cromer” and took advantage of the time alone to tackle that playroom! We spend a lot of time in that room and really love being there, but it has gotten TOO full of toys and TOO difficult to clean, so I decided to try out a toy rotation system. I took today to divide most of the toys into three batches. Two of the three were boxed and put in storage and the other was placed in the newly cleaned-up and organized room. I left a number of the kids’ favorite and most frequently used toys completely out of the rotation system, so that they will always be available to play with. I gave a few things to goodwill and threw a few things away. Mostly, the toys they have are nice and great quality, but there are just so many that many of them get ignored or forgotten. I’m hoping that by rotating out the toys every month or two, the kids will find renewed interest in some of them and be more likely to play with all their toys, rather than just the ones on top. I’m also hoping it will make the daily task of picking up the playroom a little easier!

For other moms out there considering tackling a similar task, here’s how it went down today! I worked on this from 9 am to 3 pm (6 hours), but that included a one hour trip to Target to buy the plastic storage bins and a lunch break. It did NOT however include any interruptions whatsoever. I was working in a completely silent house – very unusual! But, honestly this is NOT a task you could accomplish with children around. I divided all the toys, puzzles, games, dress-up into three piles, trying to keep one of each kind of item in each pile for variety. Then I visually sized up my piles and went to Target to get very large storage bins. I paid $20 per bin, which to me is a LOT, but, honestly it was an investment in my sanity. I like that they are see-through so I can quickly see what toys are in each bin and I also liked that they were perfectly rectangular, so easy to fill neatly. I labeled each bin with a list of what was inside just in case we really “need” to find a specific toy. I also stored a few items that were too large for boxes.

In doing this task I realized how much stuff was in that room. I found 15 balls! 4 fireman hats! Two years worth of High Five magazines! And lots more.

The big question is: will my new task of rotating the toys every few months be more or less work that dealing with an overflowing playroom? I’m hoping less!

The piles: