Jan 31, 2012

Phase 1 - Project Room Organization

We've let Kent and Kurt's room go for months now. It pretty much made me ill every time I stepped foot in it. So I stopped going in there. You see, I've organized their room countless times and they are just unable, and unwilling, to keep it up. In the past, I literally would be in tears during the hours and hours of my sitting in the middle of their room going through box after box, and stack after stack, of stuff. As the older boys got older, their toys/Legos/games got handed down to K&K and put in their room. So it was overflowing, not just with their own items, but with items from 10-12 years ago. So, one of my 12 for 12 goals for this year was to get their room back in shape. And somehow I motivated myself to do it in January - yay!

I started with the closet so that as I got rid of stuff in there, we could store items from the room in it. A big dilemma was of course, their Legos - the loose ones and where to put them. Currently they had many plastic boxes of them stuck under Kurt's bed. I emptied a 6 drawer Iris cart that had art supplies in it (that they were no longer using) that was inside the right side of the closet, and most of the loose Legos fit in there - sorry I forgot to take a pic!

The other side had old books, puzzles, and games on the upper shelf and other things just crammed in below. I was able to clear out all the books, recycled all puzzles less than 500 pieces (because I was not going to put them together, nor count the pieces to see if they were all there), and throw away board games that were missing pieces. As a result we were able to get all their Lego board games in there plus the other games that were left. And store some other toys down below. Oh, and now we can close the doors.

This is the whole room - theirs is a long room, so taking pics of it from the door only got one side of it. They have their Ikea loft beds along one side and they sleep head-to-head.

Kurt's side. Since pre-school, he has loved frogs. And so far is unwilling to part with them. OK, by me, I'm in no rush for him to grow up. ;) In the top right-hand corner is a vanity that my Uncle Wilfred made me when I was a little girl. For Christmas that year I was dying for a vanity! It's all I wanted. So my parents had him make one. Since it came from Santa, I didn't find out it was made by him until many years later. It has held up all these years.

Kent's side. I didn't have room to take a before picture close-up, so I had to crop it from the room pictures. He also has a favorite - big cats. :) So his side is more jungle-ish.

As we went through everything, it was a constant chore to pick out the Legos, K-Nex, airsoft BBs, and Nerf ammo amidst all the other junk. These are 2 boxes at the end of Kurt's bed - the bottom has stuffed animals in it that *I* am not ready to part with that belong to the boys. The top overflowing box contains all their Nerf guns. Ammo containers are sitting on the stool that goes with my vanity. :)
 

K&K were a great help this time. They helped carry stuff out of the room so we could get started and I gave them boxes to sort the items into keep, give away, throw away piles. We still have some things left that I'm not convinced they will ever touch again, so I told them we would revisit those items this summer.
We packed up several boxes full of like-new books, some big floor puzzles, animal stamps, and the last of their plastic animal figures and took them over to a friend of mine who has 9 children - 5 of them under 7. It was like Christmas for them! The rest of it got recycled or thrown away, with just one more bag to give away.
After about 12 hours, I was so happy to have this room to this stage. We still have another phase to do, organize all the shelves, desk, and Lego displays and clothing. I'll be back another day with the befores and afters of Phase 2.

5 comments:

  1. Good job ... now I bet you walk by the room, stop, go in, look around and smile ...

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  2. WOW!!! That was a boat load of work. You deserve a major treat for tackling that. Spa day or something really great. Fantastic job Mary!

    Cori in WA

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  3. You're doing great! It gets better. My boys are 13 and now that their room is their 'pad' they take a lot of pride in how it looks. They want it to look grown-up I guess. Also, the older they get the fewer toys they have.

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  4. Wow - what a butt load of work!! Your after photos really show what you were able to accomplish! I go through my boys' stuff all the time (and they're only 7&4). I feared getting to the crazy level you reached, lol :) I hope (for you sanity if anything) that this can be a turning point for their organization skills :)

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