Goes a long way.

We try not to put to much pressure on our kids to have a neat and tidy room all the time because it’s a battle we choose not to have. The problem is the mess gets so out of control that I can’t stand it. The clean up is so hard and always ends with me yelling and doing all of the work. The boys have a lot of legos, costumes, and hot wheels cars that even with the simple container sorting, it is too much for them. So, a couple Fridays ago, I made a plan with the boys to get their room cleaned up.

We started after breakfast sorting all the toys into their containers and diaper boxes. That picture above is an in-progress shot and notice how messy it was. As I worked and encouraged the boys to help me, I kept thinking this is always going to look a hot mess if we keep putting their toys away the same way. I started making a mental list of different ways to store their stuff that would be easier for all of us. Most of the ideas went right out because I didn’t want to buy a bunch of storage containers and make labels because lets be honest, when they have to clean up without my help they don’t care where they put things.

Then, the simple thought of, I wish I had a way to hang the costumes, was all I needed to get their room in an easy working order. I went through several ideas with the hooks and hangers, I could buy hooks and attach them to palette planks and then hang them or just hang the hooks on the wall or make a clothes rack with hangers. All of those ideas were too much work and some more permanent than I wanted. That’s when I remembered I had some 3M hooks and those would be perfect.

The first three hooks went up pretty easy, I used a level and spaced them out evenly at an eyeballed height and immediately loved the idea. I only had five hooks and about 15 costumes and capes, a trip to the store was needed. Next, came the question, what would be hung above the costumes, pictures of the boys dressed as super heroes, pictures of the real super heroes or other pictures I have of the boys. Each one of those ideas came with having to buy frames and again it was going to be more permanent than I wanted. Then hanging the masks to the costumes came to mind and somehow it worked out perfectly.

I was so happy with this simple solution. It took their room from always being a mess to functionally decorated and organized. Plus, it made the room a little more about them.

We are a couple of weeks into this new set up and I can honestly say, it’s so much easier to clean up. Emerson has less of a melt down when I ask him to clean up his room. Rhys still just doesn’t care about clean up because he’s 3 and “clean up makes him tired.”

There are a few more things that I would like to do; change out the woodland creature pictures, find a cork board or magnetic board for the boys to hang their own works of art on and add some more adventure type decorations, but I am going to wait. We plan to all move rooms when the baby is done with her crib and even though we have some time, it won’t be long.

So, for now my little super heroes will hang their capes and masks at the end of the day in this room, their room.