It’s easy for a bedroom to become disorganized. As one of the most lived-in rooms in the house, it is a natural magnet for all types of paper, books, toys, and knick-knacks. Since your bedroom is where you sleep, it’s important you keep it as neat as possible to encourage relaxation at night.

Arrange the Clothing in Your Closet
Your closet was not designed to be a refuge for every article of clothing you have ever owned. Go through your closet and remove anything you haven’t worn in the last year. With the exception of some types of formal wear, if you haven’t worn it in the last 12 months you probably won’t wear it in the next 12 months. Donate the clothes to a charity, and make room in your closet so you can find what you’re looking for quickly and easily.

Reorganize Your Drawers
It’s so much easier to shove an article of clothing in the back of a drawer than decide whether or not to keep it. If your drawers are so packed that you can’t find what you need when you need it, then it is time to weed out clothing you don’t wear. This goes double for items you don’t wear because they are stained, don’t fit, or don’t look good on you.

Take Advantage of the Space Under Your Bed
Evict the boogieman and put a few large plastic storage bins under your bed. Choose wheeled bins for easy access. Storage bins are ideal for items you use infrequently, like uncomfortable shoes.

Use Baskets
Baskets are a good way to make your bedroom look neat quickly. A laundry basket is a must, and so much better than a pile of clothing on the floor. Put a wastebasket next to your nightstand so you can easily throw out tissues and other bits of garbage.

Hang Art
Don’t clutter every surface with framed photos. Instead, hang your photos in small groups around the room and free up your tabletop space.

Put Things in the Right Room
If your bedroom has become home to wayward items that belong in the playroom or garage, then put them where they belong.

Get a Covered Desk
If your desk is in your bedroom, it’s easy to get sidetracked by work at bedtime. To prevent this, invest in a desk with a solid cover to prevent you from being distracted by work at the wrong time.

Use a Shoe Tree
Organize shoes on a hanging shoe tree in your closet. This frees up floor space and makes it easy to find shoes when you need them.

Put Personal Care Items on a Vanity
Vanities are a convenient way to keep your personal care items organized. A bath vanity can go in the master bathroom or in your bedroom.

Clear Your Nightstand
Keep your nightstand free of anything you will not use immediately before bed or upon arising. For most people, that means having only one book, a clock, a bottle of water, and a box of tissues.

Miguel Salcido is an avid blogger, father of 2, and recent proud homeowner. He loves studying architecture and home design and decor and plans to one day buy a custom house plan to build his dream home.

Situation:

This garage was used for watching tv, working on crafts, and an extra playroom. At the same time, it had to be used to store the usual garage items including holiday décor, extra entertaining supplies, etc.

Challenge:

In the beginning there was no storage in this garage, only some assorted furniture, TV and a desk. As with many garage conversions, this space had to accommodate many different types of activities and serve as a comfortable retreat /playroom for the two boys and a space for mom and sons to create craft projects and read.

Solution:

My client had wall-to-wall cabinets installed along the longest side of the garage without windows. The cabinets made it possible to create order with the deep freeze storage items like holiday décor and also made a place for sporting equipment and extra entertaining items to live while not in use.

I shifted furniture around to create zones for each type of activity. The desk was moved to the back wall so that all craft supplies were in the same zone with small table and chairs positioned for action.

The lateral file cabinet was moved next to the door into the house as this contained the permanent family records.

The large cube shelf was moved behind the couch to create division between storage and TV zone. All extra toys were grouped together ‘like with like’ and stored in baskets behind the couch. As the boys decided to play with different activities, they brought out one basket at a time and learned to put the first one away between activities to keep chaos at bay.

Situation: This long and narrow room had ample floor to ceiling and wall to wall cabinets but the toys were constantly out and underfoot. The challenge was that the younger child could access the older child’s toys and had not learned how to put them back into tubs. At the same time, she was quite young and only beginning to learn how to put things away for herself. Add too many toys into the equation and this room became a constant challenge and source of stress for mom.

Solution: Purge and sort through excess toys and donate to charity. Organize the toys by type and activity into plastic bins with lids that could not be easily opened by the youngest. Place her toys low and at her level and her older sister’s up and out of the way on the higher shelves. With snap lids that were not quickly opened, the young one could not easily dive in and dump all of the toys while no one was looking.  It was also easier to supervise her and keep her focused on one type of activity at a time. The older child now had her games and toys up where she could get to them as she wanted and knew how to put her toys away when she was done playing.

Situation:
A dining room that was transformed into a kid’s playroom. The challenge was too many toys. This created several issues which resulted in toys that were never put away.

1.    There were toys that were no longer used and taking up precious storage space
2.    With too many play options, the kids were bouncing back and forth between activities with no real focus
3.    Because new toys were constantly added without removing old toys, storage for every item was impossible, there was simply not enough space for everything.

Solution:
1.    We purged and donated toys that the kids no longer used.
2.    Keeper toys were reduced in half with half stored in the playroom for easy access and the other half stored in Rubbermaid tubs on shelving in the garage
3.    When the children grew tired of certain toys, they were rotated out or donated and replaced with a few of the ‘new’ toys from the garage tubs
4.    We placed toy collections with multiple small parts up high and out of reach of the toddler. He was able to play with these items only with supervision and when there was time to oversee that he put them back into their designated containers. When they were behind closed doors, he forgot about them anyway.
5.    I repurposed the shelving unit on the right in the ‘before’ photo and moved it into the hall closet where it fit perfectly without removing the shelf above and it became a very useful haven for backpacks, purses, shoes and craft materials.

Our kids accumulate belongings starting at birth and continuing throughout the rest of their lives. Organizing a child’s room or playroom is crucial for this reason. Without a good organizational plan for your child’s room or play area, chaos will soon arise, if you aren’t already tripping over or stepping on toys thrown about the room. If you have experience with the almost frantic search for “the other piece” to a game or toy set, these tips are for you. Read the rest of this entry »