Toy Room Organization

We live in a relatively small space considering we have five children.  Our playroom is also the nursery.  I'm not complaining.  There are families with more kids who do great with less space.  And we have all we could ever need or want.  But it does keep me on my toes when it comes to toys.  We can only have so many before all the stuff makes me go crazy.  I do a lot of under the radar tossing into the goodwill box.  A couple of years ago, I came up with a system that really works for me.  The goal:  to make it orderly enough so the boys could totally pick it up themselves. Everything else is put away in a container and can only be taken out if they ask me.

  This is my toy shelf.  I think it was on clearance for around $25 at Target. The white bins are $2 from Ikea.  The bins are labeled as followed:  Little People, Lincoln Logs, cars & trucks, animals, guns & balls, airplanes, action figures, trains.  I go through these bins about every three months and get rid of things they haven't played with in awhile.

Our cars & trucks bin is the fullest.  Go figure.

We have a train table.

A basket of dress-up stuff.

A basket of stuffed animals.

These are the toys I have put up for special play times.  Mostly Lego sets and Playmobil toys.  These and any child under the age of 4 = disaster!

Oh, I also have some big lego bins right next to my kitchen table.  These legos are random and I don't mind if pieces are misplaced.  The boys play with those daily.

That is it.  My favorite part is that I can tell them to pick up the playroom and they know exactly where to put everything.  No more, "But Mommy, I don't know where it all goes."  No excuses.  And I haven't gotten on my hands and knees to pick up toys in a long, long time.