Systems :: Toys

This post has been in the works for a while, waiting for a day when my house wasn't absolutely a disaster so I could take some decent pictures. Surprisingly in the months following Christmas a lot of good toy organization always seems to happen here since the kids get very focused on their new things and sort of forget the rest. As always, if none of this applies to you or you don't really care about our toyboxes, come back tomorrow for more stories about the kiddos :-)

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Living in a world where excess is normal (especially when you have children), it is far too easy to find ourselves buried under masses of STUFF wondering, "Where did all this come from??"

That was us about 18 months into parenting. We had one very small kid and our toyboxes and shelves were full to bursting. We were feeling smothered and knew it could only get worse if we didn't do something. Since then, we have figured some things out that really work for us and keep the STUFF to a minimum so no one has to suffer from choice overload!!

One key strategy we found early on was toy rotation. We used to have three big plastic tubs with all the big plastic toys divided up between them, and we just pulled one tub of stuff out at once for playing. We also had art supplies and play-doh in the kitchen. Frequently we would remove toys from the bins that he had outgrown or didn't play with or were broken (this usually followed a birthday or Christmas when we were blessed with more).

All of that worked pretty well, but as Evan got older he seemed to have favorites that we wanted to keep out and some miscellaneous stuff that was just fun to keep on display. From this we discovered that the favorites were actually collections (like blocks and legos) that lent themselves to creative plays so they were used more often so some re-organizing needed to happen.

Then we had Chloe and it got more complicated.

With a small house (and an itty bitty bedroom) we needed to rethink our toy dilemma. This has been a problem for three years (one of which we were recovering our home from the ridiculous flood of '09 so I guess that one doesn't really count) but we have finally gotten it right I think.

Just recently, we did an experiment to make sure we didn't have too much. We had read a book called Simplicity Parenting that recommended piling up all your toys in the middle of a room to see how much you really had. We knew it wasn't going to be as bad as some of the stories in the book, but still it was an interesting thing to do. Here's what our living room looked like:


This was everything (plus a pile of miscellaneous stuff in the corner behind the piano and a rice box not in the picture). We didn't think it was that bad -- not that we expected it to be, but you never know when it's spread out everywhere. I wish we had actually made a pile like it was suggested, but we got the job done.

The idea behind this is to get to the root of what our kids love -- not just to have a bunch of trivial things that make them excited from moment to moment, but to help them cultivate a long attention span as well as an appreciation for what they own. Some people may find this thought ridiculous, but it correlates well with our family values. It's fine if this is not your thing!

Our kids are old enough to have a say in what stayed and what went, so we did it together. Stuff they weren't sure of went in a rotation box, permanent storage (keepsake type of box), or their personal treasure box depending on how small it is.


Our system ended up being -- everyday favorites upstairs and the rest downstairs to mix and match with.

They don't actually play in their bedroom since there is no floor space for it, but we do keep the toys in there for nightly clean up. This is from between their beds to the 'storage wall.'
The display shelves hold mostly Evan's stuff since Chloe is not really into displaying anything yet. The top shelf is too high for them, bu they ask if they want what's up there.

On the toy shelf we decided they would keep their everyday favorites on the bottom three shelves. Chloe's were horses, playmobil and matchbox cars. Evan's were transformers and legos. Playmobil, since it's in a huge box, is in the closet. Horses and transformers are in big lidded boxes and the legos are divided up the way Evan likes them, by set, and the rest are in a grab box in the closet. The cars are in a green basket. There are a couple other things on there that didn't fit on the display shelves or that we just didn't want getting mixed up in stuff downstairs like Evan's microscope or Chloe's pop beads, so those went on the top two shelves. It also allows freedom to change their minds and put other favorites here too.

We don't really want to keep this cube shelf much longer but can't think of any other toy storage method right now that works for their age. You'll see that the closet is way small as you keep reading, but we may end up doing something different in there.


In the closet we keep games up high. They really don't initiate these any more frequently when they are down low, so this makes sense since our shelf space is at a premium. A bunch of our games are in the rotation box and a couple others are downstairs. (The storage boxes up there have rock and shell collections in them.)
The big boxes are legos, playmobil and a misc toybox. Their personal treasure boxes are on the shelf too. Evan's off-roaders are kept in here for the moment (down on the bottom) because he thought they were a favorite but he hasn't chosen them in over a month, so I'm just moving them around till they find a home. I wanted the bottom to be mostly open so they could play hide-and-seek in here without crushing everything.



Downstairs this is all the rest of the stuff with the exception of one toy-rotation tub with a few big things in it that is in storage.
We have plans to sell these cube shelves and build some long open wall shelves soon.

The big collections are in the boxes on the floor. Wooden train stuff is also stored on the toy shelf right next to it since it's our biggest collection.

In the corner are small stuffed animals (there is another box of bigger ones by the couch I forgot to take a picture of), duplo legos, lincoln logs and big cars and trucks:
Dress-ups are in these baskets for now. I want some other kind of hang up system but that's for later on too. Our dress-ups are not costumes, but rather open ended pieces they can do what they want with. Their vests are in the wicker basket and the rest (hats, shoes, gloves, wings, purses, play jewelry and random pieces of fabric are in the laundry basket).
Here are the toy shelves:
They love having a CD player to dance and run around to music!


The green baskets hold smaller collections -- airplanes, Magnetix set and card/dice/solitaire games. The rest of this shelf is puzzles, games, pegboard, beanbags and blocks.


Our art space has moved to the living room since we do a lot of sitting on the couch together or laying on the floor. I like that we have easy access to the coloring notebooks or tracing books. We've done so much more art together since I moved it here.
The box holds all the supplies except colored pencils which get used the most. All this is the non-messy stuff.

In the kitchen we still keep messier things like glue, glitter, markers and paint. Also the play-doh is in here.
And of course the rice box is still sitting where it has been for years. We mostly used bath or beach type of toys in here when the kids were younger, but now it's funnels and tubes and scoops and army men :-)We mostly play upstairs as a family. When the kids get tired of being with me or Todd they will run off downstairs together to dance and climb. Then when they tire out, they will sit down and build something or put a puzzle together and come back up in an hour or two. We finally feel like we can breathe!

Because we have much less stuff now, we truly LOVE what we have. Keeping only what you love makes it easier to decide what to play with. Our kids have been so content with the few things that are out, even though that seems contradictory to what the media would have us believe.

The other day I said to Todd, "The only thing the kids played with ALL day was horses and bead necklaces." They were making elevators on the piano knobs. That was it. I had read some books to them and we colored together a bit, but as far as them choosing to play and staying with it.... one thing all day.

It's working so good!