Day 8: Organize Toys in the Living Room (40 days to home organization)

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Day 8: Organize Toys in the Living Room  (40 days to home organization)

I like to keep most of our kid’s toys upstairs, but I also like them to have toys to play with downstairs. I like to keep a few of their favorite toys in our living room since we spend a lot of time in there. I also keep books and art supplies downstairs.

Our living room stays clean, for the most part and I owe it all to THESE FIVE THINGS:

1). Ottomans – I have storage ottomans in our living room. They fit a lot of toys and they are great for hiding them. It makes for very easy clean-up because the kids just throw their toys in there and put the lid on. It takes less than two minutes!

Here is the inside of these ottomans:

2). Blankets behind the chair
Our kids LOVE to cuddle up with blankets. We have four kids and they all use them (Even our baby likes to lay and cuddle on a blanket). They get them out so often that I didn’t not want to worry about hanging them somewhere because they need to be responsible for putting them back. Hiding them behind the chair is an easy way for the kids to take of their mess quickly and efficiently.  I loved these little cards for $8- they are called responsibility cards.  If you are looking for some help with teaching your kids to be RESPONSIBLE (helping put away toys, blankets, clothes), here is my post on age-appropriate chores. 

3). Coffee Table Drawer:
I used to have our Wii upstairs, but now I keep it downstairs because the kids like to be where I am and I am usually downstairs. We have our Wii games & accessories in the coffee table drawer. If it doesn’t fit in there, it gets moved to our Wii Basket that is in the guest room closet. This is where I keep the “big” extras (baseball bat ‘remote’, steering wheels, golf clubs…). They fit in one box and that box stays in the closet unless they are using it. If they need it, they bring the box out, use what they need and when the game is over, it goes right back to the closet. If they get too many games to fit in the coffee table, I think we would just have to go through them and get rid of the ones that they don’t use. I can’t start having Wii games everywhere or they will get lost. (I’m sure if you have young kids, you can relate!)

I found this and thought this would be perfect for putting behind a chair or couch.  It would be an easy way for your kids to put their own toys away.  They would put their toys in it, put it away (using those little handles) and pulling it out when they are ready to play.  Its simple & easy to keep everything picked up.

4). Decorative desk that serves as a storage spot, too.

5). PICTURES:
I don’t have a lot of photos around the room on surfaces for a few reasons:
1. The get cluttered and that look bothers me (the cluttered look)- it might be great in your house, but I like surfaces to stay pretty clean.
2. Did I mention that I have four kids ages six and under? Glass frames aren’t so easy to keep around!
For this reason, I had my husband put up a wall clock. If you missed that post, see it here.

That’s it. It is easy to maintain neatness in our living room with these simple tricks. Most people don’t even know that I keep toys downstairs.

At the end of every night, we just do a quick pick-up. I usually tell them to see if they can get it all cleaned up in three minutes & they run around like crazy making sure that everything is put away! (If they do a wonderful job, they will even get a cotton ball! I’ll go into this reward system idea soon). It works wonderfully!

So the main thing is to have decorative items that double as storage.

Good luck working on your Living Room today!

If you decide on a storage unit that has sharp corners (like those great coffee tables with the baskets on the bottom shelf), you might want to add a protector for those little heads 🙂

GO TO TOMORROW’S ORGANIZATION DAY: ORGANIZING YOUR GARAGE