I recently helped out a friend with her playroom/office/tv space. We spent the day with our sleeves rolled up. This was a room that needed some attention! We followed my ABC’s. Analyzing, Beautifying, and Categorizing.
It is challenging to make a space serve multiple functions and that was just what this space needed to be able to do. After much TLC we brought this room back to life. Come along I’ll show you what we did!
BEFORE
There were some good attempts at organizing, but basically systems that the kiddos weren’t using effectively!
This TV and bookshelf was creating a not so feng shui feeling in the room. As we were analyzing we decided to move it completly so there wouldn’t be that closed feeling when you walked into the room.
As you can see there was LOTS of stuff in this room. So to begin we made a plan for the space including moving around some furniture pieces. In order to be able to move around and get to work we had to pull a lot of the big stuff out into another room.
A lot of this should not have been in the room in the first place because the space was not that wide to hold big toys like this.
I have to give big ups to my friend she really did have a lot of organizing systems in place. It made me so happy! The biggest challenge was that there was just way too much stuff in one room. We spent lots of time digging through each basket and bin. We sorted into piles for donation, gifts, and of course trash! We also chatted about where some of the items needed to be moved to on a permanent basis. It was loads of work. But, so rewarding. When we were done we were able to step back and look at this beautiful space.
AFTER
There is nothing like a clean fresh start!
Just a little bit of moving things around and the room felt so much bigger and spacious. My organized self would prefer to have this wall completely centered, but we are using American technology in Europe. So the garbage can is covering an ugly transformer. I assigned my friend with a “To Do,” to go through all of the children’s books on her own and donate the books her children are no longer reading. (So the bookshelf will also be more streamlined once she does that!)
Simple Systems + Less Stuff = Organization!
A place for everything!
The biggest change that we made, that I think will have huge and lasting impact. Was my suggestion for her to put the toys with many pieces (Leggos, Play Mobil…) UP HIGH. That way when kids come over an adult needs to get them down and can better monitor the use of them, and hopefully the clean up when they are done playing!
Kids do better with a few choices to play with versus a multitude of options. They can focus better and won’t have the tendency to become overwhelmed. Limiting what they have access to will help you to better keep your spaces organized and streamlined! Don’t have a dedicated playroom? Check out my post here for how I have solved this very problem myself!
With toys and soooo many things in life, Less IS More!
*KISS – Keep toys with many pieces and parts out of reach, so you can better manage the clean up and organization.
Linked up with A Bowl Full of Lemons and I Heart Organizing.
