Taming the Clutter: An Organized Playroom

Hi, friends! Welcome to day 2 of Boy Mom Madness! This week a bunch of my favorite blogging boy mamas and I are delving into all things boy!

Today we’re tackling boy organization, which I thought was extremely appropriate because if there’s one thing I organize over and over again in this house, it’s the Cs’ stuff! No matter how many times I declutter, they always manage to accumulate new things {cough*grandma*coughcough 😉 }, outgrow toys, or just create mayhem in general, causing me to have to repeat the process all over again. So today I thought I’d give you a little tour of our current play area and talk about what’s working for us right now as far as toy organization goes.

This post contains affiliate links. For more information, see my disclosures here.

So our “playroom” isn’t actually a dedicated room. We have a long, narrow living room, and one half houses our couch/TV/sitting area and the other half is toy central, which you can see above. This area has changed over and over as the Cs have gotten bigger and their toys have gotten bigger right along with them! The last time you saw our EXPEDIT bookshelf, for example, it looked like this:

I actually liked the iron-on bin labels for a while, but there were a few things that were bothering me about this storage solution. First, the bins were black, and with the EXPEDIT already being dark, I felt like that side of the room was looking a bit like a black hole. When I was making the labels, I also didn’t think about the fact that we would be looking at them all the time since they were in our main living space, and they really made the whole area feel more child-like. The main reason I changed them out, though, was that the labels were permanent. Soon after I made them, the Cs stopped playing with trains, and it started to get confusing because we had all of these “Trains” bins holding other types of toys.

To remedy the situation, I found these Threshold bins at Target that happened to be exactly the right size but were a lot lighter and brighter than the bins we had been using before.

I still wanted to use labels to keep us organized, but I made them more discreet than the last ones, using adhesive bookplates with labels I made on my computer. I used these same bookplates on the fabric bins in my office/craft room, and they’re still going strong a year later, so I thought they’d be a great choice for the toy bins too. (PS… They are super expensive on Amazon, but I found them for $4.99/3-pack at my local Staples. They don’t seem to carry them online at Staples, though.)

All of the smaller toys, games, and books are housed in this storage unit, but when the Cs started accumulating larger toys, we had to come up with a solution for those too. After Christmas, we decided to bring in two GORM shelves and whitewash them, and they ended up being the perfect spot for big toys.

Yes, there are days I wish the Cs’ toys were in a separate room so I could just shut the door and not see them, but I really think we’ve made the most of the space we have… at least for now. 🙂

If you’re looking for more organization ideas, be sure to visit my fellow boy mamas– they have some great ones!

Thanks so much for visiting! Have a wonderful week!

This post contains affiliate links. For more information, see my disclosures here.