My Laundry Room

The month of November we were decluttering and organizing our laundry room. I'm an Organizing Junkie hosts a monthly decluttering challenge.

Before: Kids corner when you first walk into the laundry room from the garage. The big pink bag was their soccer stuff (which ended the beginning of November) so that was moved into my garage.

After: I removed the soccer stuff. Hung up their coats and put their book bags on the bottom shelf. I did leave the box for the boats. I still have the problem of the hooks being too high for the kids to do it themselves.
Before:


This is where I put my incoming mail and magazines. Also our shoes go here. In the after picture above I moved all the kids shoes to their side.




After: I removed a lot from the top shelves. I grouped all their games and put their craft supplies into those rubbermade containers.

All their games and craft supplies are also in this shelving. I have a whole bunch of games and puzzles that I am going to donate.

I removed all the clothing. Their costumes were put into their dress up. All the other clothing was taken down and put in donation bags. I then had room to put my baskets here for when they are not in use or when I have little bit of clothing to put away. I did have a blue small basket that my son sat on and broke so I need to get new basket for his clothing. My new laundry system that seems to be working is I fold the clothes as I take them out of the dryer and sort them in baskets. One basket for my son/ one for the girls/ one for my husband and my stuff. I find it easier that way then putting everything in the basket and doing it in another room. I also have the kids help me during laundry time. They transport the wet clothes into the dryer. They push the buttons. They also fold towels. I have them sort the clothing too. They sometimes pull out the clothes and hand it to me to fold.

The top draw I cleaned out and this is where I put my pocketbook and keys when I walk in the door. I also put my outgoing mail there or anything I need to take with me for the next day so I don't forget anything. Below that I cleaned out the shelf so now I have my gym bag there and my husband's lunch bag. They were were the baskets were under all the clothing before. Below that I organized more of our pantry stuff.

Our Playroom

For the month of June we are in the playroom organizing and decluttering. Remember my post about the play area here? I certainly was frustrated when I posted that entry. That was what it looked like before. Well, with a lot of purging and rearranging we are looking 100% better. I had 2 big bags to donate and 2 big bags of garbage. I threw out all the cases of DVD's we had and put all the movies into a looseleaf type zipper binder. I also gave away some DVDs to my niece, the ones my kids no longer watch like the potty training ones. I took the bookshelf from the girls closet and moved it into their play area.

So this is what the play area now looks like:

Dora bag I got from Avon and in that is all their dolls and doll clothing. The bookshelf is to the left from the girls closet. I have containers of log cabin blocks, stitching, musical instruments, lego boxes on top. In front of the bookcase is another bag filled with balls. I was tempted to get rid of the kitchen that is now in the middle of the room. But since I kept the kitchen stuff I decided to keep the kitchen too. Hoping that the kids would play with it.

Here's a close up of the bins. I was going to hang tags from the handles but figured the kids probably would tear them off so I printed them on cardstock and taped them to the front of the bin. I printed up images from the interent and used photoshop elements to make the tags for the front. There are 3 bins for boy toys and 3 bins for girl toys. They are the following:
Red - Trains
Purple - Barbies
Green - Kitchen
Burgundy - dinosaurs
Blue - Cars/Trucks
Pink - jewelry/Phones

Legos are stored high up so they can't get them down and put them all over my house. They have to ask when they want to play with those.

I moved their dress up clothes to the toy box.

Don't forget I have triplets so everything has to be done in 3's. Here are their computer desks. They got them for Christmas. They are only allowed to use them if we are in the room with them.

2 big rubbermade boxes. Top one used to have their dress up clothes in it. But now it has hats and pocketbooks. Still dress up but at least it's sorted. Bottom box is filled with books. I really need to go through that box and get rid of most of it. It's books from when they were little really and most of them have torn out pages.

Last but not least is their craft desks. These used to be in our kitchen because they are still not left alone when doing crafts because they are not trusted quite yet to be on their own. Walls show for this. Magic eraser to the rescue numerous times in our house. My husband wanted to get rid of these desks but I'm assuming they will come in handy once they are able to draw on their own. They have chairs that go with the desks too but at the moment they are in our garage.


That's it. Our new improved toy room. Now, lets see if I can get the kids to keep it organized.

For other links to playrooms please visit here.

Child's Play Room

Okay, I am sick and tired of picking up after them. Why is it that they just don't see the mess? They can make it in like 2 minutes flat but then refuse to clean it up. My husband and I got so fed up with all their crap that we took all their toys and chairs and placed them in their toy room and locked the door. Now, they have to earn each toy back when they are good. I started to clean out their room. I already threw about 2 bags of trash out and have 2 bags of toys ready to be donated.

Here's a great blog entry about making a "Lost and Found" basket. I think I may try this method.

The Girls Closet

The month of May we are decluttering and organizing the children's rooms. I'm an Organizing Junkie is running a monthly decluttering where each month is a different room we focus on. I didn't do much so far but I did tackle the girls closet. They share it. This is the before photo.

I had my husband install another rack so now they can reach their clothes easily. I put their jackets on top. Their dresses, matching outfits, pants and tops are on the bottom. He removed the bookshelf that we had on the right and moved it into their toy room which still needs to be cleaned out. I moved the iris cart to where the book shelf was and added a laundry basket so now they can toss their dirty cloths into the basket. I need to get another basket for empty hangers.

Come join us this month in organizing our children's rooms here at I'm an Organizing Junkie.

My Master Bedroom

This is a video of my master bedroom. Please note I did not clean it. This is the before and actually what it looks like most days. I have some trouble with the kids now that they are dressing themselves.

Photo and video editing at www.OneTrueMedia.com

Check out I'm an Organizing Junkie for more bedroom roundups.

New Toaster Oven - Bread Issue?

My in-laws bought us a new toaster oven. Our old one was on it's last legs. You can see the new oven on my counter there along with my bread and drinks. My question is where do you all store your bread? I just don't know where to put them. The drinks I could probably put in the fridge once our leftovers are eaten but for now there is no room in there. We just use ice to make the drinks cold.

March - The Dining Room

It's March already? This month Laura from I'm an Organizing Junkie is focusing on decluttering the dining room. Luckily this is the only room in my house that just doesn't need decluttering. Why? It's one of the rooms that the kids just do not have access to. We don't use it to eat in and even when we have company we use our kitchen. It's also the only room that is painted nicely and has blinds that are matching. The only thing I would say is wrong with the room is that the clock on the wall doesn't work so it's the wrong time. I guess we need to put batteries in it. I will try to focus on the kitchen I guess again since I didn't finish last month.