Project Playroom and My Mission to Organize

Papers, toys, clothes – everywhere. You get fed up one day, sort it all out and reclaim your house. A couple weeks later it looks like everything exploded again. Sound familiar? Yeah, it does to me too. I can’t tell you how many times Brian and I have “cleaned up” and organized things only to fail at keeping it organized. I usually blame it on our small house space, but I think the real problem is not having a definitive place for everything to go.

Sure, we create places for everything, but then things get shuffled around.. then suddenly X is where Z goes and Y no longer fits there and…. Ahh! It makes me want to pull my hair out.

Usually when I hit the tipping point where I just can’t handle the chaos of stuff anymore one of three things has happened:

1. I can’t find what I’m looking for despite being absolutely POSITIVE it was in this area I checked over 5 times already.
2. Things are literally falling over on me. (Bill avalanche on the desk, anyone?)
3. I’ve “straightened up” and the place still looks like my toddler decorated it with her toys.

At the end of last year we started talking about hiring someone to finish part of the basement so we could have a playroom/computer room down there. This would free up one of the upstairs bedrooms, get all the toys out of the living room (or most anyway), and give me a better place to work while the kids play. We were hoping to have this project started already, but the cost of lumber shot up delaying it. It is finally going to get started very soon. Like… lumber being dropped off this weekend soon. Heck yes!

Now, having a new room made to throw all the toys in does not relieve me of our clutter problems. We still need to declutter and organize. I’ve been scouring Pinterest (you can see my home board) for creative (and cool looking) ways to tame the toys. I also need to get a better system in place for the kids’ clothes and cloth diapers. I can barely bring myself to put away laundry properly because I honestly have no clue where I’m going to put everything.

So, everything needs a designated place. That way it’s easier to put toys, clothes, etc away because there is no question where it belongs. This also makes it possible for anyone to do it instead of pushing off certain tasks because only I know where the cloth diapers go etc. In order to maintain those spoken for spaces I need to get labeling with my Brother P-Touch Labeler. I can’t wait to share our progress, successes and failures (because you KNOW I’ll goof something up at some point, right?).

What’s your tipping point to get things organized?

Join in on the organization conversation over at the Brother P-Touch Facebook page.

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Disclosure: I wrote this review while participating in a campaign by Mom Central Consulting on behalf of Brother P-Touch and received a product sample to facilitate my review as well as a promotional item to thank me for my participation. The playroom project was already being planned. This fit in perfectly!