The Great Toy Takeover

When we lived in the one bedroom loft in Cabbagetown, we tried our best to live simply. Simply, because there was just no place to put any added junk. We then built to a, too big for us, 5 bedroom house in the burbs that shot that all to pieces. 

In this new home, I found places to hide things. Shoot! The place had closets, doors, walls! What is this magic? Of course things started to pile up. Toys included. The gals even had a dedicated playroom, that although it stayed tidy by the end of the day, there was ZERO organization. Every little thing was thrown into storage containers in any sort of fashion, as long as it was off the floor.

We then hit a wall with this burbs home. The house itself was wonderful, but the neighborhood all wrong. It wasn’t for us. We had to move back Intown.

We were able to sell quickly, having the house on the market for only a day, when we got the offer we wanted. Our hunt focused us in the affordable neighborhood of East Atlanta. We we found an adorable (read also: tiny) bungalow. Right then and there, we knew the stuff had to go. Some of the furniture went to my parent’s house. We sold a lot to our neighbors, donated even more, and the rest went to the curb.

I was so proud of the amount of stuff we were able to get rid of. We were ready to move into our tiny house now…right?

Nope. We still had SO much stuff. Over the past several months we’ve basically just moved it around, trying to find homes for all the things. This is the year though, my resolution, to get organized. If it’s staying in the home, it’s filed neatly with correlating objects. If it’s not needed, then goodbye. It will have happier home somewhere else.

I’ve been toying with the idea of getting the gals’ bunkbeds. To give them more space, for you guessed it, their stuff. We no longer have a playroom, so this is their area for play, just as much as it is for sleeping. And although I haven’t entirely put this idea out of my mind, I knew the room needed to be gutted of stuff first before we even went down that path. We needed to make it work with what we currently had, before we spent more money on a bunkbed.

So this past weekend, I blitzed the room, and rearranged it, so they had more floor space to play.

So of course my living room now looked like this…

I made myself go through every toy. A task that is not so easy to do with two 3 year olds hovering over you, wanting to play with the toys that you are trying to organize.

I started with piles.

Pile 1 – trash.

Pile 2 – donate.

Pile 3 – toys to store for rotation.

Pile 4 – sorted toys for bagging & placement.

Toy rotation is something I’ve always said I would do. But honestly it’s something I never really got around to. I placed the still loved, but less used toys in bins, that will be rotated out again in the next 3 months. It is with the hope that the girls will see these toys that were away for awhile, as if they were a brand new toy, thus find interest in them again. If that’s not the case, they will be sold or donated. See ya later dolls. Ninja turtles and Paw Patrol rule this roost at the moment.

The end result was glorious and just as I had imagined. I was just finishing up the separating and bagging, when the gals woke from their nap. They requested to play with the animals and vet hospital. They took them into their newly spotless room and began to play with such vivid imaginations. When that lost their favor they came back to me. We put the animals away, and the Magnaformers came out. Wash, Rise, Repeat.

TEA FOR TWO.

It made me feel really accomplished. I have already begun to plan which spots of the house I want to hit next. Grand Dad’s old desk…i’m looking at you!

We’re off to a good start 2016.