Boy Mom Madness Series: Staying Organized

Welcome to Day 2 of a weeklong “boy mom” series! (You can check out yesterday’s post on boys’ bedrooms here.) I’m teaming up with other boy mom bloggers this week to talk about all things “boy,” and we’re ending the week with a fun giveaway on Friday. (I’m participating Monday, Tuesday and Friday of this week.) If you’re a girl mom, please stick around! Although my home is full of little boys, hopefully you will find some ideas that can be modified to work for you too. Anyway, it’s a little bit hilarious that I am writing a post about staying organized when my home literally looks like a tornado went through it most of the time, but the truth is that there is some sort of method to our madness here, and when we do clean up, we have a system.

Our boys spend tons of time in their play room. Here are some photos of it when it doesn’t look like the aftermath of a tornado.

Kid’s Art Gallery Wall

The blue dresser serves as a great storage solution for art and craft supplies, coloring books, Lego instruction manuals, etc.

Interactive Chalkboard Gallery Wall

Bookshelf Makeover

My boys love to cover every square inch of floor with toys, especially Legos. Here’s how we have recently tried to remedy that situation. First of all, I love the idea of having color coded Lego bins with neat little labels and compartments for each body part and all of that. It’s wonderful, in theory. But that would never work for us. We need simplicity.

We literally have one huge bin for all Legos, and one small tin that we keep the “guys” and body parts in. Anything more complicated than this, and the Legos literally wouldn’t get picked up or put away.

Now, we do have a couple of other options too. My boys love to build little ships and vehicles, etc., and they don’t want to throw these back into the main Lego bin because they will break apart and the world will end. Therefore, these ships end up all over their bedroom floor. It’s like a Lego land mine, seriously. So, I decided to build an under the bed rolling storage tray so they could play with their guys and vehicles, and then slide it under the bed.

You can find the tutorial over at the Rent.com blog.

I also ordered an over the door shoe organizer with clear pockets to hang on the inside of their closet door to store small vehicles in so they won’t break apart and can reside somewhere other than the middle of the floor.

I got this one from Amazon.

Now that you know that our lives revolve around Legos, you should know that they actually do have other toys too.

Giant bin for MegaBloks? Check.

Open bins on the floor for the rest of the toys? Check.

We have three of those bins, each of which have two divided sections. I got them at Target and love them. (I couldn’t find the exact ones, but here is a 3-bin storage cubby that is very similar.) We used to have a bin assigned to specific types of toys (“vehicles,” “guys,” “animals,” etc.) but like I mentioned earlier, that got too complicated, so as long as the toys are off the floor and in the bins, I really don’t care what goes where.

As for the baby? I love baskets for general organization (and that applies to anywhere in the house). We have a basket for books next to the rocking chair in the nursery.

I also have the same basket downstairs in the family room and it holds diapers, wipes, and a pillow and throw blanket (to hide the diaper and wipes). By the way, HomeGoods is my very favorite source for affordably priced baskets.

Oh, and one more thing about our family room…

Although in person you can tell that the ottoman has taken quite a beating over the years, this thing opens up and has a ton of storage room inside for toys. It’s actually empty now and I’d like to eventually replace it now that we have more space and store the toys upstairs, but at our old house it was a lifesaver. I think it came from Value City Furniture or one of those big box furniture store type places. The only complaint I have about it is that the screws loosen and the lid comes off the hinges frequently so we have to tighten screws often. But that’s a small price to pay to keep toy clutter off the floor. We’ve had it for years and it has served us well.

What are your tips for organizing kid clutter? I’d love to hear!

Be sure to stop by and visit the other bloggers participating in this series!