Spring Cleaning Kids Clothes and Toys

Maybe it's nesting already or just the urge to spring clean, but I've been an organizing crazy woman around here lately. We had a busy couple of months and it felt like we had so many objects in our house that just didn't have a proper place. Our dining room and guest room hadn't been used in a while so they'd become places to toss random "homeless" items. And because we live where it's usually so mild in the winter, I'd never fully packed away last summer's wardrobes. All of our closets were overflowing with clothes!

I decided to tackle Mark's closet first. Not only does it have all of his clothes in it, but since we don't have a playroom, it also contains a lot of the toys we own. One of the ways that I try to teach the boys to clean up after themselves is by only having a few items out to play with at a time. But that means that all the toys need a home for when they are not in the rotation. And it's easiest to store them in the closet where the boys can't help themselves to them all at one time.

Here's what the closet looked like before we started:

The clothes were packed in and had everything from short-sleeved hawaiian shirts to winter sweaters. So I started by pulling it all out and we tried a lot of it on to see what still fit and what needed to be packed away. Now that Mark is 4, he is very good at dressing himself. So I moved all his t-shirts to a drawer so that he can pick out his own clothes and eliminating a lot the items that were previously hanging. The rest of the clothing was sorted into clothes for packing away and clothes for the consignment store. Thankfully, our children's store in town takes all seasons so I can even take any winter items when I take the summer clothes. I keep a lot of clothes to pass down to Luke, but not everything makes the cut for keeping.

Next came the toys. I know there are two schools of thought on cleaning out toys. They can simply "disappear" from the house. Or children can be part of the process. As difficult as it can be at times, I like for Mark to help me decide what needs to be given to other boys and girls and what he'd like to keep. He did really well this time and picked out two grocery sacks of toys to be gotten rid of.

Finally, everything in the closet got a designated home as it was being put back in the closet. I added only 1 new box for dress up clothes and the rest was simply organized and put where it belongs. Now the boys can see what they want to play with and I can see what clothes Mark has to wear.

Here is our finished closet. It looks better, don't you think? My blood pressure no longer rises each time I open the door to get something out!

What tips do you have for me to stay organized and not let it get to the "disaster" stage it was before?

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