Using Pinterest to Clear the Clutter

At the beginning of the year as I was trying to find homes for all of the new toys received on Christmas I realized I have got to get my 4 year old son’s room organized.  The two large bins for toy boxes are just not cutting it.  Especially now that he has cars, army men, legos, and all sorts of other little toys that accumulate at the bottom of the bins.

So it started there and then I realized I had an even larger problem in my big girls room.  My almost 13 year old and almost 10 year old share the smallest room in the house and they have a lot of big furniture.  The organization in there is just awful.  I took an entire day with them shortly after the start of the year to clear out a lot of junk and see what we could do in there.  None of us really knew where to start so I started looking around Pinterest and started showing them a few things.

We didn’t go much further than that at that point because of lack of funds.  However, I knew that it was something we needed to get done no matter what and then my husband sprung a new idea on me this week.  He wants to move our rooms around.  As in we are all moving out of our rooms and into another.

My husband and I will take our son’s room, he will go into his big sister’s room, and the big girls will take our room and on top of that the baby will now be in with her brother.  Phew, did you catch all of that?  We are moving 6 people out of their current bedrooms and into new bedrooms and we’re doing it now as soon as my husband starts his 2 week vacation from work.  So onto Pinterest I jumped again to find the perfect solution for all of our bedroom clutter needs.

Starting with the girl’s room!

So with the girls moving from the smallest bedroom in the house to the largest bedroom in the house this should be easy.  We are mostly sticking with our original plan for their room, but this is just giving us more leeway in which to pull it off in.

My oldest daughter gets a new desk

Two great options if we didn’t have bunk beds and if we owned our own home.

My middle daughter’s picks

My almost 10 year old got a new desk for Christmas so she’s not getting any big new furniture.  Just some storage bins for her loads and loads of craft supplies.  If she got to pick something she would want her room to look something like this…

I think it’s mostly because of the green that she likes this room.  It actually would be the perfect combination for my girls.  My oldest loves pink and my middle daughter loves green.

Our new bedroom!

Since my husband and I will now be moving from the largest bedroom in the house to the 2nd largest bedroom we might be feeling a little cramped.  We are also getting the bedroom that opens up to the porch and has no closets at all.  Now where will I hang all of those dresses and skirts that I never wear and my pants?  And oh no my shoes!  Where ever will my shoes go?  Pinterest to the rescue.

Here’s what I’m thinking of for a closet in our bedroom…

This will be totally doable in our bedroom.  Now the question will be can I keep things hung that neatly.  And as far as my shoes go one of those hanging on the door shoe racks should solve that problem.  Now we just have to hope we can fit all of our furniture into that room.

The little ones bedroom

Now the biggest challenge of all and the most work is going to be the bedroom for my 4 year old son and 1 year old baby girl.  We are moving our son into a pink bedroom so to get him excited about the new room and roommate we are repainting that room.  He’s going into a smaller room and adding another person in there, but at least this room has a closet.  So a few upgrades he is getting is we will give him one of the big girls old twin bed frames and get rid of his toddler bed.  A new dresser for him and his sister to share is in order now too.  But the big issue with my son has always been the toy clutter.

Organizing the toys

I have a friend who has been using old kitty litter containers to store her kids legos and cars and Barbie accessories.  I thought that’s not a bad idea, but it looks like she has tons of kitty litter stacked in her kids rooms.  Plus, until recently I didn’t have a cat so it wasn’t exactly a feasible idea for me to store my kids toys.  Plus I felt it was a little tacky.  But I found this on Pinterest…

Genius!  Why didn’t I think of this?  Of course this here is very girly, but get some red and blue paper and it’s perfect for a boy.  And it’s cheap to boot.  I don’t have any plastic kitty litter boxes so I’m going to see what I can find by enlisting the help of Freecycle to make this one happen.  Don’t you think that looks so much nicer than a bunch of plain kitty litter bins all over the place?  I will be able to have one each for my son’s tools, blocks, legos, matchbox cars, army men, and his Little People/Apple Grove Pals.

 What about the bigger toys?

Now my son has some big trucks and cars that are not going to fit in those kitty litter bins.  So what can we do with all of those?  Well how about this for car storage?

It uses one of those metal knife holders. So it might not work so well for all of those plastic toys, but still I am sure my son would love driving his cars up on the wall every night before bed to park them each night!

Stuffed animals galore!

All of my kids have been accumulating more than their fair share of stuffed animals over time.  And truth be told I am still hanging onto a few from my childhood.  Some my children have claimed as their own.  They are everywhere and we need to find a good home for them.  You could try something like this…

I have my son’s in a large wicker laundry basket right now and they are overflowing and it’s taking up popular floor real estate. So if you are looking for a way to free up floor space you can always try a pet net.

This is a neat DIY tutorial, but if you are like me and sewed the sleeve together on the shirt you made in your 7th grade sewing class, then this might be frighting for you. Plus, I always find pet nets hard to place so they are accessible for small children and they don’t hold a lot of stuffed animals. So a little more looking around and Pinterest supplied me with the perfect solution.

Hanging planters are perfect. We can put them at just the right height so the kids can easily access them. It will be off the floor and will look really cute. And how fun will it be to see how many baskets we can make in the numerous different hanging planters when it’s time to clean up for the day?

I think I have found all of the solutions to all of our major problems with organization in the bedrooms.  If more come up as we are moving I’m sure I’ll be checking out Pinterest for some more help.  What great organization tips have you found on Pinterest recently?