The month before Christmas I turn into The Grinch. I look around at all our stuff and wonder, how will we ever fit one more toy into this house? Why do we need one more toy? My kids have tons of toys, I then complain to my husband, threaten to cancel Christmas, and then the massive cleaning begins. This year I took the girls’ room and the playroom. My husband took the boys’ room, because honestly I am afraid of going in there most days.
While everyone was at church and I was at home with our little lice lady (she is actually lice free, but I was playing it safe) I went through the house and collected all the toys I thought needed to go. I piled them on the dining room table. Only one toy was objected to by the kids and that was the Lincoln Logs. My six year old promised to play with them every day and so far he is two for two. Everything else will be headed to the thrift store.
The girls room was just a mess from lack of attention. Many of their toys are still bagged up from the lice decontamination, so it was mostly shoes and random items that didn’t belong in their room. My littlest one is still sleeping in the pack and play because the sheets are easy to wash if we find any more lice. Normally she sleeps in the bed.
Before
After
The playroom was a total wreck. I ended up dumping out every bin, cubby, box, bag, and shelf in the room. It took almost the whole day to finish the job. Now that it is clean I have locked the door and will not let the kids in :).
Before
After
In the playroom, a shelf in the closet holds all my school craft supplies. Some of the bins have not been opened for about a year. I decided to go through the bins and get rid of the stuff we will never use, then organize the bins according to their contents.
Before
Because it is no fun to organize without labeling everything, I printed up some fun labels for the outside of the boxes when I was done.
After all that cleaning, I needed to do something fun, so I decided it was time to move furniture. Does anyone else move furniture for fun? I actually had a purpose in moving things today, we need to find a place for the Christmas tree!
I moved the staircase bookshelves to the upstairs hall and the downstairs bookcase to the staircase.
Well, I didn’t move them, because everyone knows pregnant women shouldn’t move seven foot bookcases. My kids moved them. I love my kids!
Bookcase to be moved to the stairway landing…
Bookcase on the stairs to be moved upstairs…
The book movers (having lots of kids when you do a project like this is a big help!)
Part of my muscle team of movers, not sure what happen to the two bigger ones…
Bookcase that now sits on the landing
Bookcase that is now in the upstairs hallway
I decided to wait until the big man came home from work to move the piano. Maybe I’ll have pictures of that next week.
Hopefully we can cut down a Christmas tree while we are in WV and bring it back with us this weekend. They are super cheap and are so beautiful compared to the ones around here.
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Katie @ 3 Blondes and a Redhead says
A girl after my own heart…I’m just a few days away from doing this very thing. I have the toys that are on their way OUT in my head and everything. Can’t wait!
Monica says
I do the same thing every year. You did an excellent job! Everything looks so nice!
Heidi @ Blue Eyed Blessings says
I’m exhausted just reading all of this! What a tackle! I’m going to be doing this same thing soon to get ready for the “new batch” of toys, but my kids are still pretty young, so we haven’t quite accumulated as much. I know it’s going to happen one day whether I like it or not!
Alexandra says
This is a tackle I need to do as well. I have absolutely no idea where MORE toys will go. I try to tell family “SMALL GIFTS” & we end up with kitchen playset & workshop benches.
$5 Dinner Mom says
I did the same thing on Saturday. I was “making room for Santa”. I’ve got the urge to rearrange the playroom (I love moving furniture too!), but will likely wait until after Christmas.
So I purged a bunch of toys on Saturday, and then on Sunday some friends from church dropped off 15 sets of Geotrax! So we’re cluttered again, and I need to set up a “toy rotation” system now!
Happy Thanksgiving!
Erin
robyn says
Oh wow nice job… and getting the kids to help is great! I need to work on my clutter!
susieshomemade says
Great Tackle!!
momstheword says
Congrats on the new baby! Yes, I like to move my living room furniture around twice a year. I have my fall-winter look and my spring-summer. Dear hubby just shakes his head and laughs.
I used to use Christmas (and birthdays) as an excuse to clean out the toys. Told the kids no new toys coming in until we had some going out.
Karen says
Can you send those book movers to my house next?
Kristin says
Now that’s some Christmas Cleaning! I wonder if my kids would go for that?
Great Post!
The Lazy Organizer says
Look at you go amazing pregnant woman!!! I wish I had that much energy when I was pregnant!
Everything looks fabulous. But holy toys batman! I vote you get rid of them and buy more books. They are so much easier to organize!
jolyn says
Ooh, I love these projects! At least, reading about them. Doing them is exhausting, but so rewarding. Lucky for me Uncle Sam gives me cause to declutter every couple of years or so… The shelves on the landing are perfect. And I’m of the mind you can never have too many shelves — in small homes they can serve as the backdrop while still providing the storage. Do you ever let yourself get rid of books?
Melody says
Great job! I love the labels. I can completely relate to locking the door on the clean room. After we organized our boys’ room we put all the toys in the closet and locked it. Now they have to ask to play with them and we put them back and relock the door when they are done. No more stepping on a thousand legos.