7 Little Things That You Can do to Organize the Kids' Rooms

Copyright © 2005 Karen Fritscher-Porter

Easy Home Organizing

http://www.easyhomeorganizing.com/



1. Sink to their level. Get on your knees in their room to view

things from a kid's level. Convenience is an important factor in

getting anyone to organize or put things away. Lower clothing

racks in the closet. Put most frequently used items on the lowest

shelves and in the lowest drawers. Set up decorative, short open

bins, crates, baskets and boxes in corners, on closet floors and

at the foot of the bed.



2. Hide stuff under the bed. Use flat, rectangular storage bins

on wheels that are made for under-the-bed storage. Designate one

of these for Barbie dolls and another for mini toy cars. Store

your children's artwork including construction paper and crayons

in one of the bins. Older children can store schoolwork and

notebooks here. Got music lovers? They can keep a pile of CDs

handy here.



3. Make organizing fun. Organizing can be a drag even for "big

people." Imagine how your child feels at the thought of clearing

away his toys, clothes and school work. Get your children

involved by letting them creatively label their own drawers and

bins. They can make personalized drawings as labels. Or you can

take photos of your child with an object that goes in the drawer

and tape it to the front of the bin or drawer. Is the drawer

supposed to hold small toy soldiers? Tape a small clear plastic

pocket to the outside of the drawer that's stuffed with an

example of the contents such as one toy soldier. You can buy

notebook plastic sleeves (also called sheet protectors) from any

office supply store. Then just cut them to the size needed. Use

clear shipping tape to attach labels to bins. Put a laundry

hamper under a kid size basketball hoop.



4. Keep drawers shallow. The deeper the drawer, the more kids

will fill it. With a few exceptions for big bulky items, use

shallow drawers. Some narrow storage carts on wheels come with

five or six shallow drawers. You can roll the cart into the

closet if needed or line several in a row against a wall. Fill

deeper drawers with mini-organizers such as small trays, tins,

recycled cardboard boxes and more. Don't use lids on the

mini-organizers; that's just a hassle for kids to find their

items and remember to put the lids back on each item. Use

makeshift cardboard dividers to separate things in drawers--like

socks.



5. Color code it. Buy blue bins for Barbie dolls and red bins

for fire trucks. Put summer clothing on green hangers and Sunday

dress outfits on blue hangers. Or use different colors for

different children. Suzy gets blue bins and hangers and Sandy

gets red bins and hangers.



6. Hang it. Your children might view their collection of

self-created artwork in much the same way as you view your

collection of store-bought artwork. Buy inexpensive frames and

hang drawings in a clustered artistic layout on one wall in your

child's room. It adds a decorative and personalized element. Put

up a cork/bulletin board for the kids to hang ribbons and medals

from field days, school spirit events and competitions. Another

cork board can be for photos. Or hang a rectangular vertical

homemade fabric organizer with pockets beside the door to hold

photos, souvenir card collections and birthday cards through the

years.



7. Set ground rules. For example, before you play another board

game, you must first put this board game away. Before each

gift-giving season, you must pick one item to donate to a

nonprofit organization; it brings a smile to the face of a child

with less than you. You can only keep things in your room that

have a place. So if a drawer is full and you want to keep

something new, you must discard something from the drawer (for

example, an old piece of artwork for a new piece of artwork or an

old broken toy for a new one).









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Nationally published freelance writer Karen Fritscher-Porter

writes about home organizing solutions at EasyHomeOrganizing.com.

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