A little organizing goes a long way.

It’s expensive to live in Maryland. So people like us live in small spaces. Whenever I’m in Utah, I realize just how much more expensive it is to live here, when I notice how much more people had for the same amount of money.  Anyway, when you are stuck with tight living conditions, you learn to be grateful for any little extra space you have, and try to figure out how to be creative with that space. Our one extra room (an extra room is truly a luxury around here) is our play room/guest room. We move the toys out when guests come, and then it’s back to playroom mode when they leave. The kids think the change is a lot of fun, so we don’t mind at all switching it up now and then. It’s works for us.

But as we get more/bigger toys as the kids grow up, we find the room feeling smaller and smaller. We definitely like to rotate toys from the basement to keep things interesting, but it still gets cramped. I felt the organizing bug hit me pretty hard a while ago, but I feel like my hands are a little tied right now. While we’re renting, I don’t want to invest in any shelving, or any permanent-type toy organization. We’ve tried simple options like our toy bin thing, which I’ve loved. It was great while the kids were younger. But now that they are getting older and wiser, it seems to be more of a toy itself, as they tear it apart the second we put it all back together. It will definitely come in handy through the years, but for now I think I’d rather have it in their room, serving some purpose besides causing more of a mess, while it’s supposed to do the opposite.  So I got to thinking of what would work for our situation now. Having toys is still new to me, so it’s hard to know what to do with them when they are all of the sudden coming out of your ears!

I decided to go the most practical route, and buy several large lidded bins. The toys are now organized by type, and are all bagged individually inside each bin. I also bought some of those awesome jumbo Ziploc bags that hold all the balls,  tents, and any inflatables when they aren’t in use. I now have much more control over the toys than I did before, and more space for them too.  The kids love it. We open one or two bins at a time, they bring me a bag to open, and they play with the toys as if they’ve never seen them before. It’s also helping as I’m trying to teach them to clean up what they are playing with, before we get something new out. I’m sure that lesson will take some time to learn, but you gotta start somewhere. This should also make the guestroom to playroom transition a little easier, with just a few things to move around.

So, it’s nothing fancy, it’s nothing unique, but it’s perfect for our situation right now. I feel like no matter what you do to make your life more organized and clutter-free, as simple as it may be, can feel like such a breath of fresh air, don’t you think? A clean house = a happy mom around here, so until this stops working and we need to make another change, this makes me very happy.

Before:

After:

As much as I fanaticize about having a huge basement playroom, or, say, more than one bathroom, I’m going to look on the bright side of the situation and enjoy that I only have this small space to clean right now.  The kids don’t know any different, so why rush into wanting more, instead of enjoying what we have? I’ll try to remember that this winter when it feels like the walls are closing in on us.