Organizing A Child’s Toy Cupboard
Is your Toy cupboard driving you mad?
Do your kiddies leave everything lying around?
First things first, if you are lucky enough to be able to get a day at home without your children or get an hour or so a day when they are sleeping, this can be done. You can break it down to sections in the cupboard and go from there.
To give you an idea, I helped a friend a while ago to go through her children’s toy cupboard. It took us 4 days in total, doing an hour at a time. Also allowed for us going out and getting some new storage containers. I have to say by doing it together the time went quickly.
We started by taking everything out and measuring the inside area of the cupboard. So the shelf lengths, heights and depth. This way we knew what we had to work with and how big the new storage containers could be.
Then it was time to start going through the contents of the cupboard. We all know that kids love to keep things, little treasures. So be careful what you throw away, they have an amazing memory of what they have kept and not kept. Something to look at doing is to set up a treasures box and every now and again go through it with them and take a few things out. My suggestion is to make a few piles, (beware this may get messy before it gets better.) ie Dolls, Craft gear, Homework, Building blocks, Puzzles.
Now that you know what you have that is going back in the Toy Cupboard, its time to find containers. Now you should be able to source these from very cheap to the more expensive. Look at your local Walmart, Container Store, even Amazon do storage containers! Look out for Storage containers with Lids, it makes it easier to keep things together and if you have a high shelf, you are less likely to loss things when putting them away.
Once you have your containers, it is an idea to make labels for them. Make them bright and fun and even for the younger kiddies, getVelcro tape and stick on of the toys on the outside, so the children can see what is in the container. (remembering that those under 3 are not likely to be able to read a label) Another option is to put a picture of what is in the container on the outside.
Once you have everything stored away in the boxes, you can start organizing them all into cupboard.
Remember, leave the things that are used all the time on the bottom shelves, and work from there. Also a good idea not to put the heaviest of containers on the top shelf. You don’t want to damage you back!
