Clutter Buster: Toys

     For the last couple of weeks I have been having to remove my son's toys from his room in order to get him to go to sleep. This was never a problem until now and it's very frustrating to have to move the toys out of his room at night and then back into his room in the morning.

If I don't move them back to his room, this is what I get. And that is a You Tube'd episode of Bear in the Big Blue House: To Clean or Not to Clean.

     I'm still searching for a solution for his bigger toys and I will update this post when I figure that out - the goal is to be able to move only a few things at night before bed and have a toy-free room.

At the moment I have to move each of his bigger toys one by one and stick them in random places around my living room.

     To make this task easier, I bought a simple rolling laundry cart from WalMart and two dollar store baskets - total cost: $15.50. My son is very good at putting things back where he found them so this works out very nicely for us. We did a quick purge of his toys to get rid of the McDonald's toys (one of the not-so-perks of working there) and anything else that he didn't really play with. We do this on a regular basis so he really doesn't have very many toys most of the time and it takes no time at all.

Just the right height to fit under my counter and out of the way. The basket on the left holds his trains, and the basket on the right is anything else with wheels (cars, trucks, skateboards).

     Now keep in mind, we recently acquired this lovely train set - and there are only two engines and a few cars and tracks pictured here. But I have a bin with a minimum of 41 more engines, around 25 more cars, and 20 or so little trucks and tractors that can go on the tracks as well as enough track to cover my entire living room floor. But how I end up organizing that will be another post for another day.

In the comments: do your kiddos sleep with toys in the room? Do you use rolling carts for anything around your home?