Sort What They Don't Play With
Your kid's playroom likely has all sorts of stuff in it - and some stuff may not even be played with anymore. You need to get rid of anything that isn't being used so that it doesn't clutter up the room. This is where you may want to involve the kids. Go through everything. If they haven't played with it in the past three months, donate it, sell it at a garage sale, or toss it to the curb.
If there are any seasonal toys, then you may want to set these aside in a different area of the room. This can include anything from Easter coloring books to Christmas puzzles. Place them in a tote or something that is marked seasonal so you know to bring it down and into the playroom when the holidays approach.
There may also be some broken items that have made their way into the playroom. Either fix them or toss them. Many parents are surprised by how many items are still lingering in the kid's playroom when they start to organize. Just because you told your kids to throw something away a few months ago doesn't mean they actually did.
Group the Toys
You need to start making piles with all of the toys for some kind of classification system. You may want to label things as dolls, make believe, arts & crafts, and various other categories based upon what you have in front of you. It can also be a great idea to take advantage of a home organizing service where someone will come in and do all of this for you.
He or she is likely going to help you not only with the playroom but also in other areas of your home. This ensures that you don't end up with an "overflow" room where things simply just appear because they don't have an actual home within your home. This is often what happens when kid's toys start piling up in a room. They do so because your kids just don't know where they go.
Get Creative
It may be possible to use the closet as a way to store many of the toys and odds and ends. This may include milk crates, shelves, or various other forms of organization. You have to work within your budget, so you may have to get a little creative in terms of what you can store things in. That labeling system is going to be your best friend so that everyone knows what's inside without spilling the contents onto the floor.
A closet organizing service can help you to understand what needs to be done within the playroom. There are all sorts of creative ways that a professional home organizing service can help you so that children know where everything goes and keep it nice and neat moving forward.
Organizing a playroom always comes down to what works best for the kids. Since they are the ones spending the most time inside the room, the organization has to work for them - and make sense to them. If they don't like what you did to their room, it's only going to be a matter of time before everything is right back to where it was.
A professional home organizing service can help you to make sense out of the chaos. They have experience with organization and can help to determine what's going to be best for your kids - which often includes asking your kids what they want to see for their toys. And regarding your budget, they can help find an affordable way to keep the toys organized now and in the future. Your kids may even find toys that they forgot existed once it is all clean and labeled.
Robert Mizrahi
Professional Organizer in NYC
Chaos Commandos
