Playrooms and Panic Attacks

Oh my goodness. This room could not get any messier. The challenge of a designated playroom is having the room be completely overtaken by all the stuff to play with. So stressful. You can see this room from just about everywhere else in the house, so it's gotta at least not make me have a panic attack when I look at it. That's my absolute minimum standard of organization for my house: if it's panic attack-inducing, it's gotta go.

When it's at the point where you can't even walk though the room, much less have space to play, somethin's gotta change. I had already gotten rid of all the toys the kids don't play with, so I didn't need to purge - I just needed a better system.


Order must be restored.



Here's my solution: five giant Rubbermaid boxes that each have a selection of toys in them. I've left out the stuff the kids play with every day - P's kitchen supplies, Mr. Man's walker-thing - and of course, some books, because reading is fundamental, people, but other than that, everything's boxed up. The original idea was to designate one box per day, so on Monday, get out the Monday box, but I don't know if I'm going to follow that. We might just get out one box and play with it until we feel like putting it away and getting out something new.

This way, all the toys are still accessible - I didn't want to put them in closets and forget about them, because they're all things that the kids still like, but now we can actually see and play with what's out, instead of tripping over everything and being overwhelmed by all the stuff.


I still think it's a little messy to have all those boxes stacked up, but it sure beats having the contents all over the floor!

Guess who's happy to have some clear floor space to play in? This guy!