Anyone have any ideas or know of someone who is really good at organizing space? My 5 year old daughter has a pretty small bedroom and I feel like there is just no space left for her things. I'm sure the closet could be better utilized for some storage, and there has to be something (inexpensive) I can do with her room. It's driving me absolutely crazy right now!!
One of my favorite things to use in my kids' closet is a closet doubler. Since her clothes are small, you can use one of these easily. http://www.walmart.com/ip/Closet-Doubler/5508741 Then on the other side of the closet or any other part of the room, I love the Closet Maid cubeicals and storage drawers. http://www.target.com/p/ClosetMaid-...NG=home decor&ci_src=14110944&ci_sku=12193725 Target ususally has these on sale every other week or so. I have the 9-cube one in my kids' room now; I use 2 spaces for books, 7 canvas bins separate their toys and they use the top as a counter for their cash registers!
I used one of those small white plastic dresser looking things. Three drawers. One for legos, one for hotwheels and one for train tracks. Worked out great.
This is long, sorry! But hope it helps... We had two of our kids sharing a room at one time and that made the room very cluttered. I have found that it helps a lot for everything to have a "place". It sounds so simple, and it is, but sometimes as the kids grow and out-grow things start to get stacked and cluttered and you just have to have a place to put them. So my suggestion is to buy baskets, or plastic bins or tubs and make a "place" for everything so that it becomes easy to put stuff away. Shelves put up can be a home for knickknacks and art projects and trophies that clutter dresser tops. If you are on a tight budget, you can make some of your own "containers" by having the kids glue tissue paper or other decorative stuff onto empty Quaker oats containers, old coffee cans, or something similar, even an egg carton can be decorated and used to store desk items in a drawer. Those can be great because the kids have fun making them, they can make them to match their room or style, and they can help organize everything from erasers and pencils, to happy meal toys, to bubblegum machine rubber balls. Store seasonal clothes in tubs in a garage or attic when it's off-season, or use under-bed storage. If you need a little more space under the bed you can buy bed risers at Bed Bath and Beyond. "Super Hangers" will allow for a little more space in the closet also, and are fairly cheap (you can google it). I even use folders to help keep like-papers together: construction paper in one folder, school papers she wants to keep in a folder, pictures in a folder. Even just putting things into baggies can help keep it organized, and makes it easy for kids to put away. Erasers can be baggied, DS games can be baggied, Barbie clothes and accessories or Matchbox cars can be baggied. It just depends on your budget what you want to spend to organize, but it can be done cheaply, and is more about having a designated "place" for things IMO. Hope this helps. And then take a realistic look for a week at what is still getting played with, and donate anything that they have outgrown. Sometimes I think we adults hold onto things because we payed a lot and hate to see it go, or we can't quite believe our child is too big to play with something when really it is time for a new home
one thing that we have found useful for our kids is not to have everything they own available at one time. we are very fortunate to have a lot of family who likes to give to our kids for birthdays and other holidays. and the boys share a lot, so it's almost like each kid has 3x what they would have otherwise, if that makes sense? anyway, what we do is put some stuff away for a few months at a time. leave a manageable variety of toys "downstairs" for them and put the rest away upstairs in the garage. then a few months later, cycle most of it back out...what was downstairs goes out of the house and what was in the garage comes back in. what ends up happening in the process is that the items that are gently used but really weren't a hit with the boys are donated. good luck! it's a constant battle. i agree that everything having it's place is the best thing. and having the kid help decide that place is all the better.
oh, i forgot to add. the effect of putting some stuff away is that it's like it's xmas again when we switch out to the "new" stuff again. the kids' interest in them is renewed.
hey, bandmom, THANKS A LOT! now i have yet another website to make me feel guilty about what i haven't done in my own little world. there are some GREAT ideas on that site, not just the organization page you pointed to but just the site in general. i think i am inspired. the kids are off to nana's between school getting out and christmas, so maybe i'll take some time to gut their room and reorganize. wanna help?
