(warning! this is a long, rambling post about nothing. But for some reason I felt compelled to write it)
My kids are getting to an age where their toys are starting to really annoy me. A lot. Here's why:
1. They're everywhere! In their bedrooms, in the designated toy area of our basement, and everywhere in between! I swear, I have a toy bin in every major room of my house. Even the bath toys have their own spot beside the tub.
2. they're obnoxious. Toys that make noise--enough said.
3. They don't get played with. Several times I have bought Brooke a toy thinking it would get loved and all it does is collect dust under the bed.
4. Enough is enough. How many barbies/princess toys does one 5 year old need? And as much as I love books, I am tired of finding them everywhere.
Toys were taking over my house and I was sick of it! It was time to declare war on toys. Winning the toy war started with me reclaiming my main floor: the living room, kitchen, and dining room. I started by removing the toy bin that was taking up a corner in my living room. The living room is the first room people see when you come into my house. It's where our piano and nice framed pictures are. It's supposed to be a formal room. With the toy bin in there, it became an invitation for my kids to pound on the piano keys, throw the couch pillows on the floor and leave their stuff strewn all over. The toy bin in the corner was originally there to keep Porter's baby toys so he could play close by. He's older now, so I feel good about removing it.
The second step in the toy war was to go through and pack up or donate toys that don't get played with. Some toys had lost pieces and weren't worth saving, but others I will get out when Porter is a little older. I pretty much got rid of most of the baby toys. Neither of my kids ever really played with them and I decided if we have another baby, it will have to make do without them. I even had Brooke help me decide which toys to pack up--she was surprisingly helpful in telling me which ones she didn't really play with anymore.
Third, we reclaimed our downstairs. Our basement family room is where we watch TV and relax. It's a long and narrow room so one side has our couch and TV and the other side has the fireplace and a perfect area to keep toys. The problem was that our toy collection has grown. We no longer have a few toys for Brooke to play with. We now have toys for both kids, a toy kitchen, blocks, an art easle, a little picnic table that comes inside when it starts to get cold outside, we also have a slide that comes inside once cold weather hits...it was getting ridiculous and toys were taking up our downstairs. We were sick of always having to pick up when we wanted to come downstairs and relax. Packing up some of the toys helped, but Blake and I decided to do a major overhaul. We have a basement bedroom that we use as our office/junk room. We decided to turn that into a playroom and move our desk out into the family room in the spot the toys once were. It took some major organizing on my part since that room had become the "I don't know where to put this, so I'll just stick it in here for now" room.
This picture was taken right after we bought our house 3 years ago. Brooke's once "little" corner of toys has probably tripled since then.
Now, we have a nice spot for our desk/computer
I used an over the door shoe hanger to organize my craft stuff in the downstairs closet.
Another reason for this change was due to the fact that we have lots of family coming for Thanksgiving and not a place to put everyone. We have a hide-a-bed that my mom usually sleeps on when she visits, but that doesn't really offer privacy. And with 3 different families coming, we would need more sleeping options. At first we thought we'd buy a twin bed for Brooke with a trundle underneath it for guests. But then Blake and I had the "what if we have more kids" conversation and thought that if that happens, Porter and Brooke would share a room for a little bit and we'd just get bunk-beds for them, so the trundle bed idea was out. Blake and I had been wanting a new mattress for a while so we decided to do that and then put our old one (cleaned and shampooed) in the playroom as well. Since we don't get guests that often (only a few times a year) and the toyroom really isn't that big, we are keeping the mattress up on its side against a wall (to discourage jumping too). When guests come, we'll pull it out and make the bed up.
The funny thing about our new mattress is how tall it makes our bed now. Our bed also used to be really tall (like I needed a step to get into it) but Blake chopped the legs off when we bought our house. Now, we're really glad he did otherwise we'd feel like we were sleeping on the top bunk of a bunkbed! Also, Blake, the ever bargainer, not only convinced the furinture store to give us a deal on the mattress, he also convinced the saleslady to throw in 2 $60 pillows. Needless to say, we love going to bed at night now!
The once junk room/office is now a playroom/guest room
It's been interesting that even just the few days that we've made this change how much better the feeling in our house has been. I'm not stressed that toys are everywhere. The kids have a place to go to play and be kids and they know that toys stay in there. With less toys, the room gets messy but it's a quick cleanup. And we can close the door if I don't want to look at it. I like this new arrangement a lot better.
This experience has also given me a new outlook for the holiday season coming up. My kids don't need a lot to be happy. Our whole family is happier with less stuff. Several years ago I got this great idea from a friend about Christmas gifts. Her kids get 6 things:
a need, a want, something to play with, something to wear, something to watch, and something to read. I love this! Instead of tons of toys, the kids get a variety of things. I have another friend who does something similar for birthdays:
need, want, wear, read. Perfect! I love it and am going to use it (especially since B's birthday is right before Christmas, which in past years, results in a gift overload during those 2 weeks). And after Brooke's monumental meltdown on Christmas Eve last year, Blake and I decided to make December more service oriented and I've been collecting family service ideas we can do throughout the month of December to bring the spirit into our home.
I love my kids and for me, showing them that less is more is the best gift I can give them. I declare this toy war officially over.
