Five Simple Steps to Keep Your Child's Playroom Clean and Organized

Yuck...the dreaded playroom. It never seems to stay clean regardless of what you try to do! Every time you step foot into your child's playroom, you could scream with disgust, anger and most of all confusion. Organizing a jumble of toys can seem daunting, especially when they are currently in toy boxes and Rubbermaid totes!

While it may be daunting, it doesn't have to be difficult! You can get your child's playroom clean and organized and if you do it right, it will stay that way! Below I've listed the steps I have taken to keep my children's playroom clean and organized all the time!

Step One ~ Assess the problem!

The day I decided to organize my daughter's playroom, I had just had enough! I was sick and tired of stepping over toys and weaving my way through a crooked path just to get to my home office. There were about seven of those Rubbermaid totes, just overflowing with toys, as well as a full toy box that wouldn't even close! Way to many toys for two little girls! I figured out that the major problem was they couldn't find any of the things they wanted to play with because they were buried in the never ending sea of totes! So, in order to find what they wanted they had to practically dump each tote.

Step Two ~ Purge

That's right people, throw it out! I would be you find at least one hundred miscellaneous puzzle pieces that you have no idea which puzzle they go to! Throw them out! Don't save them thinking that someday you will find where they go, because you just won't! Same goes for the myriad of little toys from mickey d's! Get rid of them, the kids haven't touched them since the day they came in the happy meal because they were buried anyway! When I did our playroom, I through out almost a whole garbage bag of the little things! Ridiculous!

Step Three ~ Remove Everything

Take everything out of whatever storage container you have! Think of creative way's to use the kid's larger toys too, things like pocket books, dolly diaper bags and kitchen sets can all be used as storage containers. Believe me, using them will save you hundreds of dollars!

Step Four ~ Clean

Clean up the play area, sweep and mop or vacuum the floor. Then dust down whatever large toys there are, like a kitchen set or doll house.

Step Five ~ Put it all back

Here comes the fun part! Now you have to figure out how to put it all back so your kids can find what they want each time and can easily figure out where to put the toys back when they are done using them. Here's how I did it...

I used the kitchen set for storage for all the play food and dishes. The food went in the refrigerator and the dishes in the cabinets.

We had an old dresser that wasn't being used anymore, so I put it in the playroom and used it for all the dress up clothes my daughter's have as well as the dress up clothes for their dolls. The top drawers contain the doll clothes, second two drawers have the girl's dress up clothes and the final drawer contains all their dress up shoes for themselves and their dolls.

My aunt gave the girls a few decorative canvas boxes for Christmas last year, so inside one went all of their matchbox cars, etc and in another I placed all of the little toys for the doll house, including the furniture and dolls, then in third went all of the DVD movies.

All that was really left was their dolls and stuffed animals and I really wanted to get rid of all of those Rubbermaid totes, so I downsized what was left into just their wooden toy box. No more totes!

It's all done and the play room is nice and clean and organized. Plus now, all of their toys have a place of their own, which makes it a lot easier for the girls to find what they want and put it back in the right place went they are done. Yes, it was time consuming. Yes, I wanted to scream with rage at some of the things I found buried in those totes, but I did it and you can too!