Corralling the chaos. Aka cleaning the kid's rooms.

Naive people that we are, Steve and I decided that we would try something to get a handle on the rooms that our children live in. On Saturday we had them bring everything from their rooms down to the living and dining rooms. I mean everything. Toys, belongings, clothing and bedding. There were only bedframes and mattresses left in each room. They were each given a blanket to put their own things on and it was not a pretty sight. There was not an inch of clear floor space . Our point was that we wanted the kids to see what all of their items looked like in one place. It makes it much easier to part with things once you see how much space they take up. Els was very accurate when sitting amidst her mountain of possessions she said, "This is just embarrassing."

We have a boys room and a girls room. We do have one extra bedroom and someday it may get occupied but for now this works well.

We are all very pleased with the results. The girls each have a large basket that slides under the beds for things they do not want on their shelf on the bookshelf. They also each get one bin on the bottom of the bookshelf for things they use often.

Steve added a shorter closet rod in the girls closet so now each girl has a section. There are less clothes in the dressers and we actually were able to take one out of their room. They each have a treasure box that sits on the top shelf in the closet and these boxes are reserved for very special items that they do not need access to daily. Here they keep special letters and momentos.

I am still working on the walls but this feels very clean and managable. There you can see two of the baskets under Lil's bed. Man, that view looks bare. Isn't it nice?

This is the sitting/reading/dressing area in their room. Each girl has a place to hang her robe. We would like to add a rug and a few throw pillows here so they can read or play here. (Steve also painted this wall with a nice toasted wheat color to cover an unfortunate marker incident.)

The two boys have a smaller L-shape room. They really like how it layed out now also. Bub has a place for his trophies and football memorabilia and you can see their laundry basket. Their bedding was still in the dryer at press time.

We moved in a bookshelf my dad made and purchased some bins. Lij has bins now for his animals, blocks and cars. There is space for their own books and instruments. Bub also likes having a safe spot for his boom box.

Most of the clothing is hung in the boys room also. They each have a storage box for the floor of the closet for toys and belongings as well as their treasure boxes on the top shelf of their closet. They share the one dresser for underclothes and pajamas and there is a lower shelf in the closet for shoes. Under the bed the garbage and fire trucks roll in nicely and Bub has a basket under there for storage as well. He even said this afternoon, "Well, our hardwork paid off." I would agree. The whole house feels lighter.

Unfortunately, during the great clean sweep, our washer gave out. We are under warranty but the repair man can't come until Wednesday. So now we are heading out to Nana's to wash clothes and have dinner. Now that their rooms are so nice I do not want to lose ground. Can you blame me?