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Toy Organization and Storage

Like many moms, I feel like I spend much of my time picking up and keeping our house somewhat orderly.  If I'm not doing that, I'm on some treasure hunt to find a specific toy my kid's are searching for only to find it buried at the bottom of the toy box!

I spent the last week doing a major pre-spring cleaning and resolved to effectively organize our toy situation.  And trust me, it's a situation.  We don't have a designated playroom so our living space was becoming overrun with toys.  Not good.  I did donate a lot of things we weren't using which helped reduce a lot of the clutter.

I'm sharing this post with you for two reasons.  First, I may never see our toys this organized again.  Secondly, it's always nice to see how and where other people manage their toys.  If you have any great tips, please, please share them in the comments for everyone to see.  

Let me be the first to admit that my kids are very over indulged when it comes to toys.  However, I assure you that much of what you see was given as gifts and we do enjoy playing with it all!  Disclaimer done.

Let's start with the kitchen.  I have two toy baskets that slide into a console. We have a cooking basket...


children kitchen toy organization

And another basket with blocks, flashcards and some odds and ends.  I try to pull these out when the boys want to be in the kitchen with me while I'm cooking.  Most of the time this doesn't work and I end up tripping over it instead but it's worth a try.


Next up, the living room.  We have a large storage ottoman that has a mixture of big boy toys and baby toys.  It works well for large items that are hard to fit in the boy's rooms.  One thing my son loves is all the Hot Wheels/Matchbox cars being in one exclusive basket.

preschool toys organization

Into Luke's room where we play a lot.  Under his Lego table (former train table) we have a pull out bin that houses large trucks and all construction equipment.

toy trucks organized

Under his bed are kid's DVDs, puzzles and figures.

DVD toys organized

This shelf has been a lifesaver. You can see here that it houses a lot of stuff neatly.  I bought the plastic bins at Target and I love that they are clear.  I may do a separate post on Lego organization in the future but for now we are using a fishing tackle box and a few stackable organizers also from Target.  There are also a lot of Legos on his work table.  I blame Santa for that.  He never listens to me.

toys bookshelf organization

Here's a close up of each bin that's housed on the shelf above.  I've broken them down into categories that my kids like but certainly if you have girls, you could do it differently :)  I have nieces and grew up with two sisters so I know all about the pink stuff too!

plastic container organization

We also have a pretty impressive set of toy tools which we keep in a Home Depot toolbox.  It was only ten bucks and Luke likes that it's a REAL toolbox.  We keep this in the bottom of his closet so that Jett can't use it as a stepping stool.



Jett's room is very small but he does have a second hand toy box with the farm, some baby tractors, his piano and some stuffed animals.  Under his crib, we store our Thomas the Train stuff which I have separated into two baskets.  One for trains and one for tracks.  Sorry I didn't get a picture of that one.  He also has quite a collection of books in his room which I'm working on organizing.

toy box organization

And that concludes our tour! It was a huge job for me but the boys seem much happier and even Luke said he "likes his toys neat." You can check back with me in six months and see if they're still that way.

Here's 5 helpful tips for successful toy organization and thanks for sticking around for this long post!

1. Throw away all toys that are broken and not fixable.
2. Toss the junk. You know, the "Happy Meal" toys.  Your kids will never know.
3. Pack away or donate things they have outgrown.  Do this when they are not around.
4. Organize by category.  Kid's love to play this way so why not make it easy for them!
5. Utilize every nook and cranny for storage. Under beds, closets, drawers, wall shelves, bins, etc.



4 comments:

  1. Wow you really got it all organized so well! Looks great. I found your blog through the hop. Glad I did.

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  2. GREAT organization tips!! I have been putting off spring cleaning the play room for a while now because as you know, it's so overwhelming!

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  3. I'm sorry to say that I don't have any tips to share but I will take away some good organization. For when I have kids and for everyday life. Everything looks so pretty. Nice work!

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  4. How cute are you? I adore all of your toy storage, this is a great post and full of eye candy. Great simple solutions!

    xoxo!
    Jen

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