White Toy Cabinet

The white toy cabinet may look clean on the outside…however, that is not the case when you open it up and look inside of it.  It has items placed randomly all around and is in a bit of a disarray.  Today we are going to talk about organizing the toy cabinets.  Our kids love playing, but for some reason the items they play with do not always find the correct homes when it is time for them to be put away.  Despite the fact that most toys have a specific location where they call home.  Whether it is that they are in a hurry, don’t want to take the time, or are not sure where to put it, who knows.  Every once in awhile the white toy cabinet, like everything else in the house, needs a good cleaning.

Sometimes when you are cleaning out the kids stuff you find little treasures that the kids have kept for a variety of bizarre reasons, a candy wrapper from a friend, a 1 inch scrap of paper they are saving to do a craft, a piece of ribbon, or some other item that they stuffed in the cabinet for later use.  There are times when the cabinet is so full of items and disorganized that it cannot even completely shut.  I often wonder why these instances don’t trigger some thought process that says “Hey time to clean me out, please”!  Maybe it does, but they don’t want to do it at that particular moment in time!  Thankfully, as the kids are getting older I am starting notice more occasions were they will voluntarily notice a mess and clean it  up by themselves.   These precious moments makes my heart happy!

 It’s a mess, not sure where some of that stuff came from in the toy cabinet

Here are 3 Simple Steps I use when cleaning out the kids toy cabinet:

1. If it is broken – throw it away

2. If they no longer play with it – give it away

3. If it is out of place – put it away

Much better!  Now they can actually find the toys and items they are looking for in the toy cabinet!

After going through the cabinet and applying the three simple principles as well as wiping down the inside and outside of the cabinet it is pretty much done.  Sometimes there are a handful of items I am not sure about or want the kids to make the choice about what they want to do with them, but otherwise it is done.

While these steps sound really easy there have been times especially when the kids were younger and watching me clean out the toy cabinet I hesitated on some items.  They may not have played with it this month, but maybe they will again next month.  In those cases I usually held onto the toy for a little bit longer and if they hadn’t played with it by the time I cleaned the toy cabinet out again it was time for it to find another home.

I am a sentimental person so I like to keep special items.  The problem is no one has a house large enough to keep everything so while I may hang onto things longer than some people eventually I have to admit when it’s time to let it go.