Erin, a Telecommuter and Mother
This client, a wife and working mother of two young children, contacted me for some organizing help. She and her husband and children had recently relocated to the area, and although most everything had been unpacked, she still felt that her home wasn’t as functional as it should have been. In this busy life season, it was difficult to just keep up with the daily activities, and finding extra time to organize had proved very difficult. Her goal was to make better use of space, have a dedicated home for everything, and to make her home more warm, comfortable, and functional.
Over a period of months, we worked on organizing several different spaces. The room that qualified as the biggest challenge was the playroom. In the middle of the busy holiday season, several events occurred which required extra travel and an even busier than usual schedule. In addition to this, the client wanted to make room for new toys, books, and arts and craft supplies that the children would be receiving for Christmas.
After clearly identifying her goals and ideal vision for the room, we started by pulling out any large items that weren’t going to be kept. We removed items that the children had outgrown or were no longer interested in as well as damaged items. Then we started the process of grouping items into categories. The furniture with cubes had a lot of storage space, but it wasn’t be effectively utilized. We put the items that were most commonly used on the lower shelves of this storage piece for easier access. We made use of containers that the client already owned.
We also talked about the idea of toy rotation in the future. When the amount of toys gets to be too much for the room, but there aren’t any toys that you are ready to get rid of, putting some of them away for a while can really help. Every few months or so, the toys that have bee put away can be exchanged with the ones in the playroom. This is a great strategy to avoid a room with too many items for the available space.
The end result was such a dramatic improvement!
