Want to see a real life decluttering project?
Summer holidays here in Australia, and I have had a few decluttering projects on my list.
Disclaimer… Several years ago I went through and decluttered my home once and for all, and I had A LOT of stuff EVERYWHERE! It was so overwhelming!
Read more about my decluttering journey here.
Decluttering my whole home, and outside areas probably took me about 2 YEARS!! But now decluttering thankfully is just about smaller areas that get out of control… like the kids’ toys!
The Boys Bedroom…
We have a smallish house which I appreciate because I have less to clean, less to look after and less space to store stuff.
My 8 and 10 year old boys share a small room, and their toy shelves badly needed decluttering. Hmm – stuff was on the floor, underneath the bed, piled on the drawers and more. Every surface in the bedroom was covered in stuff!
Decluttering Toys
What I did…
- Gave each child an empty box for stuff they wanted to keep.
- Created an obvious rubbish pile, a donate pile (there wasn’t much to donate), and a return to somewhere else in the house pile (that pile was big!).
- Then everything got taken off the shelves and the boys had to sort through it all, knowing Mum would possibly throw out anything they left.
- I took responsibility for moving stuff to their beds for them to sort through, cleaning shelves (Gosh there was a few icky don’t know what that use to be patches to clean up!), returning items, throwing out obvious rubbish etc.
Good for them… there were several conversations between the boys about whether to keep something that was broken or not, keeping a larger item that they don’t play with often etc.
ALSO CHECK OUT: How To Teach Your Kids To Declutter Their Room
How We Do Toy Storage
Nerf Guns
After considering some fancy Nerf gun storage ideas (thanks Pinterest!), I decided on sticking with simple storage containers. I can’t believe I managed to fit over 30 Nerf Guns on the bottom shelf!
We did have a conversation about perhaps decluttering the Nerf gun collection. But that was a no- go! So I will see whether they stay organised or not.
LEGO Storage
The kids’ combined LEGO collection lives in several plastic baskets under the coffee table and under a fish tank in the living room. Right now though it looks like this…
Board Games
All personal and family board games and card games are stored in my office room, next to the kitchen and living room. That seems to work well!
Children’s Book Storage
All my kids are at the age now where they are into reading novels, or comic books. So we have a small basket on the floor in the living room where library books live. Then bookshelves in the living room which house most of our books.
YOU MAY ALSO LIKE: Decluttering Kids Books
Shelves Above The Bed
Each boy has 2 shelves for their own knick knacks above their beds. One shelf was a re-purposed piece of laminate that was an off-cut from my kitchen reno. The other one is a picture ledge from IKEA.
It seems to work well, though with regular cleaning as they do get dusty and can accumulate sticky lollies and who knows what! My thought is to add in another above the bed shelf if needed later on for more storage.
Under The Bed Storage
I don’t do anything with the space underneath the bed. I use to store books and toys there but found it made the area too difficult to clean. So now I prefer to leave it clear so the boys know that cleaning their bedroom means everything out from underneath the bed.
And The End Result Of Our Toy Declutter…
MORE ORGANIZING IDEAS
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