Category: Organization

6 Easy Steps To Deep Clean Your Living Room

Post author By Sarah Barkley
Post date March 12, 2022

Your living room is usually where you host your guests, and the family gathers for quality time. It is crucial that you deep clean your living room from time to time to avoid dirt accumulation so that you can enjoy your time spent there. Deep cleaning your home can prove to be a challenging task, especially if your house is large. However, if you break down this task into smaller, more manageable jobs, your living room will be spotless in no time. This article will discuss ways to deep clean your living room.

***This post contains affiliate links. It costs you nothing extra, but I may receive a small commission.***

How to Deep Clean Your Living Room

Start with the ceiling

You wouldn’t want all the dust from the high, hard-to-reach surfaces to fall on your clean floor and carpet. We recommend using a clean microfiber mop to remove dust, dirt, and debris from the ceiling, ceiling trim, light fixtures, and walls. If you come across any stubborn spots, you could use a drop of dish soap and a cotton or microfiber cloth to remove the stain. You could also dust the photo frames, making sure the cleaning agent doesn’t seep through the corners of the frame and ruin the photographs.

Clean the windows and window sills

The windows are often overlooked but can make a huge difference once cleaned and dusted. Start by washing the outside area of your windows with a glass cleaner and using a squeegee to remove the excess water. You can then move to clean the inner part of the window. Make sure you fix any streaks and wipe the window sills clean.

Get rid of clutter

Now that your ceiling, walls, and windows are clean, you can then move on to decluttering your living room. Clutter overwhelms your space, making it look smaller and more crowded. Identify items you no longer use and find a new place to store them if you cannot throw them away.

Tackle the floor

Getting rid of clutter will help expose more floor and carpeted areas. To give your floors and carpet a thorough clean, you will need to move furniture out of the way. If you cannot clean the carpet by yourself, you could hire a carpet cleaning service to lend a helping hand.

Wipe all surfaces

Use a furniture cleaner for hard surfaces such as wood and built-in shelves to get rid of loose dirt and stains. If you want to move faster, insert one hand into an old sock and use the other hand to get objects out of your way as you wipe. We recommend using a lint roller to deep clean lampshades.

Refresh your window treatments

It wouldn’t be ideal to leave dusty window treatments on clean windows. If you prefer not to take down your curtains and blinds, we recommend vacuuming them using a brush attachment while they are still in place. Another excellent alternative would be to fluff your window treatments in the dryer while getting rid of the dust on the curtain rods and rings.

Deep Clean Your Living Room

A clean home makes you feel more comfortable and relaxed. You will also be less hesitant to invite guests over to your house when your living room looks spic and span. We hope this article has been helpful.

Tags adulting, Home, How to, Organization

For the Home Home Organization

6 Smart Uses For Your Pool House

Post author By Sarah Barkley
Post date July 24, 2021

After spending money on a swimming pool, the idea of spending more money to buy a Pool House seems daring. However, what most people don’t realize is that the pool house is not part of the pool. Instead, it is an additional function of your home that can bring you many benefits. In terms of cost, a pool house can be a complex structure with various facilities and spaces, or it can be a simple cabin where you can change clothes. Either way, there are many smart uses for your pool house that make it functional year-round.

Before we discuss the benefits of the pool house, it is important to understand its basic function: convenience. Owning a pool also means having extra items such as poolside chairs, goggles, umbrellas, snorkels, pool toys, and so on. Not only can the pool house be a great place to store these items, but it can also be a convenient place for friends and family to put on bathing suits before enjoying the pool.

***This post contains affiliate links. It costs you nothing extra, but I may receive a small commission.***

Uses For Your Pool House

1. Winter Storage

What will happen to your patio and pool furniture in winter? If you invest in a pool house, you can use it as an off-season storage room to store all outdoor patio furniture and accessories. Since you will not use the swimming pool at the end of winter, you can store everything in the pool room until you need it again.

2. Home Gym

If space permits, you can install a home gym in the pool house. Not only can you save space in your home, but you will not disturb your family when you exercise in the morning. If you choose this route, you can also enjoy the pool house all year round, which is a huge benefit if you are worried about a lack of space in the cold winter.

3. Guest Room

If your budget and space allow it, why not build a guest room that turns into a pool house? Add a bedroom and bathroom, and you have the option to let guests stay the night. Your visitors can live in a beautiful and luxurious environment by the pool, and you can protect your privacy.

4. Store Hazardous Goods

You can use chemicals to clean the pool and balance the composition of the water. These chemicals can be toxic and dangerous, and it is best to store them safely in the pool room to prevent accidental ingestion or misuse. This is a benefit for families with young children who climb up the counter and rummage through the cabinets.

5. Party Venue

If you own a swimming pool, you might entertain people there at some point. The pool house allows you to hold a party in the backyard instead of inside the house. As the poolside facilities are fully equipped, guests won’t need to enter your home to use the bathroom or get food and drinks.

6. Home Office

Work-from-home has new meaning nowadays, so a workstation in your pool house might be the answer. In addition, this feature will add to the value of your property in the future.

Beneficial Uses For Your Pool House

Your pool house doesn’t have to be an unutilized space. With many uses for your pool house, you can use it all year as a guest house or entertaining space. Which of these uses sounds best to you? Leave a comment and let us know!

Tags Home, How to, work from home

Adulting For the Home Home How To Life Organization

4 Reasons Why Organizing and Tidying Your Home Is More Than Just a Chore

Post author By Sarah Barkley
Post date April 7, 2021

https://images.pexels.com/photos/276724/pexels-photo-276724.jpeg?cs=srgb&dl=pexels-pixabay-276724.jpg&fm=jpg

When you think of things like organizing and tidying your home, you probably view these activities as pure frustrating chores. Change that mindset, though, because there are many ways that tidying and organizing your home can be meaningful. You can make tidying and organize far more significant than just “handling a few chores”.

So, whether you are already booking some AirTight Storage to start decluttering, or whether you are still trying to figure out whether it’s worth the effort, there are things you should consider. If you think about the reasons organizing and tidying are more than a chore, you’ll be ready to begin.

Why Organizing and Tidying Your Home is More Than a Chore

1. The Energy of Your Home is a Real and Tangible Thing

When people talk about the “energy” of a space, it’s common to think of that as a subjective thing. It sounds like something that will vary dramatically for each person.

While it’s true that different people have unique tastes, the “energy” of your home is a real and tangible thing. Certain features of how you decorate, declutter, and style your home will have some impacts on how the space feels for others.

If your home is poorly illuminated, dusty, and has darkly painted walls, then it will have gloomy energy about it. When you organize, declutter, and decorate your home, you are actively shaping the energy and atmosphere in a way that will influence your mood.

2. The Way You Arrange Your Home Will Likely be Mirrored in Your Mindset

Not only will the way you decorate and organize your home affect the energy of the place, but it can also influence your mindset. Our home environments end up becoming reflections of our internal mental states.

We live in our homes and can directly influence how they look and feel. Since our home environments influence how we feel and think, a feedback loop naturally develops. When you begin organizing and decluttering your home, you are doing the same to your mind.

3. Organizing Your Home Can Be a Great Way of Rapidly Expanding Your Sense of Possibility

Often in life, we end up falling into a rut and feeling as though our possibilities have become limited. Organizing your home has the potential to expand your sense of possibility. This expansion is because it offers a direct step to start moving things in the direction you want to head in.

Changing your career is likely to take a while to achieve, and you’re not likely to see dramatic results from your new fitness program overnight, either. But, you can transform the way your home feels in a short amount of time.

When you have decluttered and organized your home, you will find that your control over your life has returned. Plus, you will notice that your sense of possibilities has expanded significantly.

4. The Way Your Home is Organized Directly Influences the Experience of Your Family

If you live with someone, keep in mind that the way the home is organized will directly influence the experience of those around you. It will affect the ways all the household members communicate and relate to each other.

When a home is well organized and everything feels like it’s in the right place, the household dynamics will be smoother. However, if things are cluttered, messy, and chaotic, then everyone will likely become agitated more easily.

Organizing and Tidying Your Home

While organizing and tidying your home may seem like a tedious chore that never ends, it should be much more than that. With these benefits of an organized and tidy home, it will be easier for you to think about it as an act of love.

Tags adulting, Home, Organization

Adulting For the Home How To Organization

Organization Tips You Can Learn From The Home Edit

Post author By Sarah Barkley
Post date December 5, 2020

the home edit, tips to learn from the home edit, home organization

If you have already watched The Home Edit, chances are you have made some changes within your home. There are some incredible organization tips that you can get from watching this show. The color-coordinated plastic containers that are carefully labeled, for example, can make your life much more organized.

You can test these organization tips on your messy drawer, a cupboard, or even your closet. Any room or area of your home could benefit from these organization tips.

Organization Tips Based On The Home Edit

Follow The Home Edit on Instagram

The first tip is to follow The Home Edit on Instagram, as this can be a constant source of inspiration for you. They post often and the images are so meticulous that it will make you want to get up and start organizing.

It Will Get Messier Before It Gets Better

One thing to remember is that you are most likely going to make a big mess before you have everything organized. It is essential that you don’t get overwhelmed by the chaos and that you push through this part of the organization process.

You should take everything out of your cupboard, your messy drawer, or your wardrobe first. This will give you insight into what you have, what you use, and any junk you are storing.

As it does get quite messy, you might choose to do multiple projects at once. For example, you might want to replace your kitchen windows as you reorganize the entire room. When everything is going back into your new cupboards or along your new window sills, it can feel more organized and more beautiful almost immediately. The new windows will add an extreme change that will help you enjoy your newly organized space.

You can click here to read more about Pinehurst Windows. In the meantime, you can also check out Pinterest for some great kitchen cupboard design ideas. Find ideas that you can do relatively quickly from home and on a budget.

Declutter

As you move through the process, it is a good idea to declutter as you go. If you see things that you don’t use or need, this is the perfect opportunity to sort them into piles to get rid of.

Have a pile of things that are in good working order and can be donated or sold. Plus, you should have a pile of things that are more likely to go into the trash.

It is essential to approach this with recycling, reusing, and selling mentality. Where something can be recycled, you must try to do so.

Always Use Containers

Plastic container sales have increased incredibly during 2020. And most likely will continue to do so. These are the easiest way to sort things into easy to reach categories. For example, if you are cleaning out your food cupboard, you can label a clear plastic box with the word tins and place tins inside it.

You can take this one step further and separate your tins into categories too. You can have soup cans, vegetable cans, and sauce cans. Buy as many containers as you need, plus a few extra, just in case.

You can use this method for any room in the house. I have done it with the kids’ toys and noticed a huge difference immediately. When everything has a home, it tends to get put away more often than before.

Set Up Stations

If you drink a lot of coffee, it makes sense to have an area set up just for coffee. Make sure you set this station up somewhere easily accessible since you will use it often.

Put all things you will need (or will potentially need) for making and preparing coffee at the station in bins. This will make the things you need easy to find, and you will be more likely to use them this way.

Stations also work wonders for specific periods during the year. For example, during the month of December, you might create a hot chocolate station and have everything you need to make delicious hot chocolate placed in a basket. In the fall you might choose to add some pumpkin spice syrup or other delicious things to your drinks, and this can all be placed in an easy to find container.

This also works for things like Easter, snack nights, game nights, or crafting. Whatever you feel needs to be organized, get a container for it.

Label Everything

Labels will be the saviors of your organization. They will allow you to quickly find what you need. Plus, even better, it will be easier to put things away since everyone will know where it belongs.

When you label something and always put it back in the same space, it makes it quick and straightforward to grab things. There will be no searching around or opening 10 different boxes.

Group Similar items

In the case of a messy drawer, you should try and sort similar things. If your messy drawer is mostly filled with utensils but has some ‘other’ items in it, then try to eliminate the ‘other’ items. Keep only utensils in that drawer.

The same goes for any other items, too. By grouping similar items together and eliminating other items, your home will be significiantly more organized. This means there is always a single logical place for you to find what you need.

Make it Functional

Although it is essential to have a space that you find beautiful, ensuring that everything in a specific area is logical can be more critical.

You might want to have all your shelves looking lovely, but they still should have the items you need to use regularly.

But for example, if you spend a lot of time in the kitchen, it always pays to make sure that your kitchen is well organized. This can make cooking an absolute pleasure.

Don’t worry if some areas just look more aesthetically pleasing than others. The whole point of the exercise is to make sure that everything is just well organized. With organization, the aesthetics will quickly and surely follow.

The Home Edit is one of my favorite TV shows. I learn so many organization tips from them, and I am continually inspired to re-organize my home. As I do one room at a time (hey, I have kids, I can’t do it all at once LOL), I notice an immediate difference. I hope these tips work just as well for you as they have for me! If you have any other tips, leave a comment and let me know!

Tags adulting, Home, How to, Organization

Adulting For the Home Home Life Mental Health Organization

What Are The Benefits Of A Minimalist Lifestyle?

Post author By Sarah Barkley
Post date November 19, 2020

‘Stuff’ can get very tiring after a while. It only adds complications to a life that really should be simple and easy to live enjoyably. It’s little wonder that some people choose to remove this added issue and live a much more minimalist lifestyle.

If you like the idea of doing this but you’re not sure if it’s going to help you, keep reading. There are many benefits of living a minimalist lifestyle.

Benefits of Living a Minimalist Lifestyle

You Will Declutter and Keep It That Way

The idea behind living a more minimalist life is to have fewer possessions around you. You’ll only have the things you actually need, and nothing more.

To get to this point, you will need to declutter your home and remove anything that is no longer going to serve you. This is an excellent thing to do even if you’re not becoming minimal – it gives you more space, it’s good for your mental health, and it makes your home more comfortable to live in – but whatever your reason, it’s a job that needs to be done carefully.

Of course, there will be some items, often more sentimental ones, that you don’t want to throw out but you can’t keep if you choose to be more minimal. The best option here is to compromise and rent a storage unit for anything you can’t bear to take to the dump or donate to charity.

You Will Refocus on What Matters

When you become more minimal in your life, you will be able to truly focus on what matters. There will be far fewer things around to distract you from taking the time to think about your life and ensure you are on the right path, and to reassess if you know you’re not.

You might want to think about your:

home
career
finances
family and relationships
happiness

By having fewer distractions around you and worrying less about material things, you can really think about the important things in life (and work out what those important things are in the first place).

You’ll Save Money

In the most practical sense, being minimalist means you will save money. If you want to clear debts faster, save up for something specific, or you just want to be able to have an emergency fund in place should you need it for something, the more minimal you are in your life, the more money you can save.

When you add up everything you spend over the course of a single month, you might be surprised – and not in a good way – at the amount of money you spend on ‘stuff’ that is either not used or wasn’t needed. Put that money into a savings account instead, and it will soon add up.

Spending money can quickly become a bad habit. The idea of instant gratification and retail therapy as a means to making yourself feel better is a problematic one. It is something that many people rely on to boost their mental health. Break away from this trend, and you’ll quickly understand that these material items don’t matter at all.

The benefits of living a minimalist lifestyle are amazing, and ones that everyone could benefit from. Do you have any benefits you would add to this list? Tell me about them in the comments!

Tags Home, mental health

Adulting Life Organization Printables

2020 Calendar Printables – Free!

Post author By Sarah Barkley
Post date May 24, 2020
2 Comments on 2020 Calendar Printables – Free!

Hey guys! I have definitely been slacking on posting regular blog posts since the quarantine started! So, to make up for it, I’m giving you guys free 2020 calendar printables for the rest of the year!

Am I the only one who feels like they can’t keep up even though we’re home literally all of the time? I hope not, because I’ve been SO overwhelmed. Between working from home and having all of the kids home, it’s been chaotic around here.

I’ve honestly been enjoying it, though. We’ll likely never get another chance to be home with our families for so long. I’m trying to embrace every minute of it, although that’s easier said than done.

Even though I’ve been feeling overwhelmed, I have still been super productive in other ways. These 2020 calendar printables are one instance of my productivity. Normally I’m making them the week before the month begins!

Free Calendar Printables

Alright, here are the next seven months worth of 2020 calendar printables. No download necessary, you can just right click and save the image. Feel free to share them with everyone you know, too! 🙂

June 2020 calendar printable free, free 2020 calendar printables

July 2020 calendar printable free, free 2020 calendar printables

August 2020 calendar printable free, free 2020 calendar printables

September 2020 calendar printable free, free 2020 calendar printables

October 2020 calendar printable free, free 2020 calendar printables

November 2020 calendar printable free, free 2020 calendar printables

December 2020 calendar printable free, free 2020 calendar printables

Use The Calendar Printables For Many Purposes

The reason I make my own calendar printables rather than just buying a calendar is because I use them for multiple purposes.

Each month, I print four copies of the same calendar. I use one to track our monthly bills, then another to track my blog schedule. The third copy is to keep track of parenting time, and the fourth is to plan dates with parents.

I’ve been thinking about doing a 5th calendar to keep track of freelance writing deadlines and things for my regular job. I keep all of these inside of page protectors in a small binder to stay organized.

What would you use the 2020 calendar printables for? Which one is your favorite? My favorite is definitely July! Drop a comment and let me know. 🙂

Tags adulting, Organization, Printables

Adulting Life Organization Printables

April Calendar Printable With Blank Title

Post author By Sarah Barkley
Post date March 29, 2020
2 Comments on April Calendar Printable With Blank Title

April, April 2020, April calendar printable, printable April calendar, free calendar printable

Hey everyone! I hope you’re all staying healthy and safe. If you’re an essential employee, thank you for running things! Everyone else, please stay home so we can get the world running normally again ASAP! You can occupy yourself while you’re at home by printing and filling out the April 2020 calendar that I’m sharing below!

If you need some ideas for how to keep your kids busy during this social distancing quarantine, I wrote a blog post full of fun ideas to keep kids busy. Some of the ideas will require assistance, but many of them can be done by the kids alone while you work or get some alone time.

Now, back to that printable April calendar that this post is all about. I create these printable calendars each month for my own use, but I’ve been thinking about what a waste it is to not share them with my readers!

They can be used to keep track of parenting time, blog posts, social media posts, family or school events, dinner plans, bills, and so much more. I left the title spot blank so you can fill it in as needed.

Feel free to download this printable and share it with anyone who may need a calendar in their life. I sometimes even print a copy for my littles so that they can become familiar with calendars and filling them out.

Printable April Calendar

I’ve left the image as the full size image here, so all you have to do is right click and hit ‘save’. Who needs complication in their lives right now!? Definitely not me, so I wanted to make this easy on you.

What will you use your printable April calendar for? I use 3 copies of this to keep track of things, will you be doing the same? Leave a comment and let me know!

Tags Organization, Printables

Adulting Big Kid Life Organization Our Family Parenting Printables Teenager

Free Printables: Paycheck Budget & Chore Chart

Post author By Sarah Barkley
Post date February 11, 2020
14 Comments on Free Printables: Paycheck Budget & Chore Chart

problem solving freebies, easy budget, budget for beginners, paycheck budget printable, weekly budget, easy chore chart, simple chore chart, free budget

One of my New Year’s resolutions was to create a simpler chore chart than what I’d previously been using. My original one was literally four pages long. Well, when I decided to buckle down and create the simple chore chart I was wishing for, I decided to come up with one other freebie, bringing you the two free printables I’m sharing today.

Simple Chore Chart Printable

The first printable, the easy chore chart, is intended to make it easier for my kids to get their chores done each day.

I wasn’t kidding when I said my original chore chart was four pages long. It definitely didn’t make it easy for the kids to pick chores each day, and it definitely didn’t inspire motivation.

Luckily, the new one has been a much bigger hit. It makes it easier to keep up on chores, and the kids know exactly what they should be doing that day.

I’ve noticed that the chores are getting done more quickly, sometimes before I even make it home from work.

Paycheck Budget Printable

Since I was simplifying my life with the chore chart, I was inspired to simplify my budgeting method, as well.

Before, I had been writing my budget out on notebook paper every single pay period. Not a very organized method, I admit. It worked for me for a while, but I needed something a bit easier to wrap my head around.

I have a master list of when all of our bills are due, and each week I sit down to plan out what will need paid that week. I do this before I get my paycheck, and then the day I get paid, I reference my list and pay everything.

This printable can be used for weekly or bi-weekly budget planning and monthly budgeting, whichever you prefer.

In “other expenses” I put things like food, gas, and cheerleading (which we pay weekly). In the “savings” section I put upcoming holidays and our emergency fund, which I distribute money to weekly, as well. “Extras” is for any extra money I’m putting towards debt.

Then, the final box titled “leftovers” is to figure out what I’m left with at the end of the pay period. I take our total income and subtract the total amount of money going out.

Final Thoughts

Printables make my life so much easier, and simple printables are essentials. I can’t keep up with multiple pages for a budget or chore chart. I need simple ones that allow me to keep all of my thoughts on that one page.

What do you think – do free printables help you simplify your life?

Tags adulting, big kid, Life, little kid, Organization, Parenting, Plans, Printables, Teenager

Family Activities For the Home Holiday Home How To Organization Our Family Parenting

Achievable Goals For The New Year

Post author By Sarah Barkley
Post date January 1, 2019

The New Year is already here, and I just sat down this morning to figure out my New Year’s Resolution. I wanted it to actually be achievable goals for the New Year. It was a tough call because I can honestly say I won’t be going to the gym every day (or even once a week… I have 5 kids LOL), I also won’t ALWAYS eat healthily so I’m not going to restrict myself there, either. Every resolution that I considered just didn’t seem right.

I instead thought about what areas of my life I wanted to improve in, and things that I wanted to learn about. It seemed that everything I desire fits into two categories:

Finances
Home improvement
Routine
Family

Why This Didn’t Work For Me

Instead of heading into the rest of the year with vague resolutions to improve finances, improve our home, and focus on family, I decided to make a list of how I can accomplish all of those things.

I didn’t go overboard. There are so many more things I could have added to my list, but I wanted to start with an achievable goal. I figure that I will be more likely to follow my goals through when I actually have a goal that seems possible, instead of a vague idea to work toward the goal.

I didn’t want this: Spend more time with family.
Instead, I wanted something specific: Dates with kids weekly.

Then, I even went further into it and wrote:

“Dates with kids weekly. One kid each week, rotating schedule. After 5 weeks of individual kid dates, one big family outing. Then start over.

Not all of my achievable goals for the New Year were that long, either. That was probably the most complicated one. (List of all 10 of my goals for the New Year will be listed at the end of the post).

Later tonight I plan on sitting down and making a concrete schedule of dates with the kids. I may make and print out a calendar of the whole year and write it on there. Then I can put it into a binder so that the kids can always look and see when their next date is.

Plus, it might be fun to put a memento from the date in the binder afterward. Then, next year on New Year’s Eve we can look back at all of our date memories from the year.

I wanted to figure out a plan to implement each of the things I wanted to achieve. Once I narrowed it all down and wrote out my detailed list, all of the fun ideas came naturally when I began typing up my plans. The “date binder” was one of those that just came as I was planning.

So – back to the achievable goals for the New Year. Instead of just choosing one or two vague ideas of which areas I wanted to improve in, I came up with 10 smaller achievable goals.

10 Achievable Goals For The New Year

Follow chore/payment chart (blog post about that is coming soon so check back!!)
Start seeing a larger increase in the savings account.
Hire someone to do the yard work. (so serious. we can never keep up and I’m sick of stressing about it.)
FREAKING LAUNDRY. (and yes, this is how I wrote it on my list. I guess this one might be vague but I will be typing a schedule for everyone in the house to follow.)
Dates with kids weekly. One kid each week, rotating schedule. After 5 weeks of individual kid dates, one big family outing. Then start over. (We have 5 kids, hence the 5 weeks. If you have less/more, adjust the number accordingly).
Crunch numbers for vacations for the year before January 14th. Come up with a savings plan and a plan of when to make payments by February 1st.
Post a new blog post 1 time per week.
Make $150 on TextBroker every week.
Lose 40 pounds. 10 pounds every 3 months. First goal: Lose 10 pounds by March 1st.
Buy “clutter baskets” for each person in the home. Put anything they’ve left lying around the house in those baskets and distribute accordingly after school.

Final Thoughts On Achievable Goals For The New Year

All 10 of these goals are achievable goals for the new year. I won’t have to make a HUGE change in my lifestyle, I’ll just have to plan a little better and look for ways to cut costs while also making more money. Plus, I just need a plan to contain all the freaking clutter that my family accumulates each day.

I never follow through with my New Years Resolutions because I never come up with a list of ways to actually accomplish my goals in life. This time is different.

It may sound crazy to have 10 New Years Resolutions, but if they really are achievable goals for the new year, you can hit your goal sooner and see all the progress you have made. Plus, when you do accomplish one, you can come up with an even bigger goal next time.

Did you set any goals for yourself for the New Year? Tell me about them in the comments!

Tags Adult time, Date night, Family Activities, Goals, Holiday, Home, How to, learning, Make Money, Making money online, Organization, Our Life, Parenting, Plans, The Barkleys, Things to Do

Home Organization Toys

What to do When You’re Drowning in Toys

Post author By Sarah Barkley
Post date July 2, 2018
11 Comments on What to do When You’re Drowning in Toys

It’s safe to say that most kids have too many toys. Between Christmas, birthdays, and other random gifts during the year, it is so easy to acquire TOO MANY toys.

It happened to us without me even realizing it until it was too late. The big kids had toys, of course, (they were 6 and 9 when Sylas was born), but those toys were easier to contain in bedrooms because the kids didn’t require CONSTANT supervision and there were only 2 of them.

When Sylas was a newborn, we had only a couple toys because he didn’t really play yet. When he started moving that all changed. Grandma was buying him every toy she saw, Christmas came and he was spoiled by every person on both sides of the family, and then 5 months later was his birthday.

All of a sudden we had toys EVERYWHERE. Josie was born not long after that and within a year, we had even MORE toys because she’s a girl and needed her own stuff (at least that’s what everyone said).

Then we had Liam so add even more toys at Christmas and another birthday into the mix. Plus random pickups and hand me downs and we were literally drowning.

There were toys EVERYWHERE. Upstairs, downstairs, in the car, in the hallway, EVERYWHERE. I couldn’t take it anymore. I couldn’t keep up with the cleaning up, organizing, etc.

It was time to get it under control.

What to do When You Are Drowning In Toys

1. Get rid of toys that aren’t played with or are missing pieces. I started with the toys that my kids never touched. I didn’t ask them what they WANTED to get rid of because their answer probably would have been “nothing”. Instead, when they weren’t paying attention I started getting rid of things that they just didn’t play with or that was broken/missing pieces. We donated some, threw away others (happy meal toys, broken toys, remote control cars with missing parts, puzzles with missing pieces, etc.). This actually cleared out a ton of the junk.
2. Use baskets or clear plastic totes to organize and store all toys. Yep, all of them. Amazon has a ton of different sizes to choose from but I mostly use the plastic totes pictured below, which come in a pack of 12. I also have several that are a little bigger, which I also found on amazon. I believe you can also find some small totes at dollar tree or dollar general.Label them and store them in an easy to access place. I put toys that have a lot of pieces that go together or follow a specific theme (Mr. Potato Head, horses, animals, balls, etc.) in the clear plastic totes and I label the front. I want to put pictures on them soon, too. I store larger toys in baskets. One holds all musical instruments.

Choose toys to leave out, but only choose enough that each toy has a “home” and won’t get mixed in with other toys. Everything should have a home. You can’t expect the toys to be organized and put away if there is no designated “area” for them. This has been the hardest part for me because we don’t have a ton of space for storing toys. I still want a cube organizer (pictured below) to have a couple more things out but we use a toy organizer with 12 bins (also pictured below). It works really well for us and the toys we have because the kids can easily see what toys they can play with and can pull the whole bin down when they want to play.
We choose 12 different “themes”, one theme for each bin (Ex. balls, blocks, PJ masks, Paw Patrol, Mr. Potato Head, horses, animals, technology, hot wheels, magnatiles, music, puzzles, etc.).We also use our entertainment center to store toys. I know this is kind of ridiculous but they get into it anyway so why not. LOL. In there we store a handful of books, a couple puzzles, and a couple other toys that won’t fit in a bin.
Decide where (out of sight) you are going to store some (or most) toys. We use our hall linen closet. I hate it but we don’t have much storage so it works for us. You just need a place that has shelves.I put all of the totes and baskets of toys in the closet, even the empty containers from the toys that are out are neatly stored here. Make sure it is easy to see what is in there so you can switch toys out regularly and put toys back in their labeled container.
Set a schedule for rotation. Each week or month, let the kids help choose what toys should be brought out and what ones should be put away for a while. Not only will this help lessen the toy clutter in your home, but it will also help your kids appreciate their toys more.
For bigger toys (toy kitchens, etc.) place all small pieces out of reach and designate times to play with it. Usually, I want these kinds of toys readily available to the kids but there are certain times when I’m busy (usually getting ready to leave the house) that Liam dumps all the pieces on the floor and wanders away. This leads to the pieces getting scattered all throughout the house and it usually happens during our busiest times of day. What works for us is to leave the smaller pieces (the play food) out of sight and out of reach when you aren’t able to pay as close attention or don’t have the time to help clean up the pieces.

Kids thrive on simplicity so don’t feel bad that your child doesn’t have EVERY toy they own accessible at one time. That’s overwhelming for everyone involved and leads to toys being forgotten, damaged, or lost and also leads to having a house cluttered with toys because nothing has a “home”.

What are some ways you’ve tried to combat toy clutter in your home? What worked and what didn’t? Let me know in the comments!

Tags Home, How to, Organization, Our Life, Parenting, Toys