The day I decided to flaunt my organized home.

I love Kelly's Korner (Kellyskornerblog.com, in case you are unfamiliar) and can finally take part in one of her 'Show Us Your Life' posts. Ok, so I'm a few days late...and I can see the irony of being late with a post about organization. Har har. *But*...better late then never, right?

I used to go back and forth between someone with a cluttered, kinda-messy house to someone who had so neurotically organized everything that it would last a few days and then was impossible to keep up with. Any mom knows that adding a baby to the mix causes total chaos- along with those sweet bundles of joy comes more JUNK then you ever thought possible. Twelve thousand toys, seventeen trillion articles of too-cute clothing, and a creature that demands you focus all of your energy on their sweet little faces, rather than running your home like a well-oiled machine.

Well, now that I have two bundles of joy, I've finally gotten it down to a system. I've learned what works and what doesn't and for the next 10 minutes, until one of the kids enters a new phase that completely wreaks havoc on my 'system', I will show you what works for us!


First, let's talk about the battle that always ensues when you need to get everyone out the door. You can't find your keys, someone's missing a shoe, someone stuck gum in their sister's hair (ok, sorry, can't help with that one)...Having one place that holds all your 'stuff' right by the front door helps tremendously!

For us, this place is these shelves and baskets. I've seen others use a bench or a longer table, but our nook is just the right size for these shelves. There's a bit of space on either side to put things like our pool bag in the summer or plastic tray-like containers to put snow boots in in the winter (I like to fold up a towel and lay it in a plastic dishpan to avoid a snowy mess all over the floor!) The hubby and I get the top baskets- one is for the one pair of running shoes the hubs wears most days and one is for the two pairs of shoes I wear most. All others (dress shoes, running shoes, etc.) are kept in our closets. The yellow baskets are for our daughter- one for the shoes she wears most, and the other for the rest of them, as well as a small pouch for her hats (hey, a girl has to accessorize!). The green baskets are for Cal, who is able to pull them out, find his shoes, and start to put them on by himself. He can also take his shoes off and return them to his basket as soon as he walks in the door. So, not only does it keep things tidy, but also gives him a 'job' that he is responsible for.



Now is the time I must confess my love for these little guys: the moss bunnies from Pier 1 that you might have spotted hiding in the yellow flowers. Seriously, y'all, how cute are these things? I'm so sad Easter is over...how long do you think I can keep them up under the guise of just being spring decorations? Hmm...






Now, on to the toy room/Cal's room. The annoying dilemma that toys present (especially those belongings to boys and featuring wheels) is that they are oddly shaped and hard to stick neatly on a shelf or in a toy box. I am in LOVE with this wire shelving from Target. First, I don't worry that anyone will pull it down on themselves like they could do with a bookshelf. Secondly, it's totally flexible. I've ziptied extra metal pieces inside the cubes to create half-sized cubes. I've put multiple sets of cubes together to line two walls in his room with them (they are supposed to be 3x2 cubes, but can be connected together to make whatever dimensions you want). Also, The papers on the front of the bins can be changed whenever our toy distribution changes (like the shunning of baby toys, which disappeared a year ago only to be brought back with the arrival of Samantha). I used to laminate the papers, but now just use page protectors so I can change them easily. Also, I put a picture and label, in hopes that it will encourage reading skills.

You might notice that one of the pages is blank. When Cal is playing with lots of different things and either I'm too tired or too busy to put them all in their proper bins, we can still throw everything into one bin, so the room is still picked up and tidy. Then, later, we can make sure everything is in its correct place.

This is a great example of things being TIDY, but NOT PERFECT. Previously, there would be toys on the floor and it would be bedtime or we'd need to rush out somewhere and I just couldn't put everything back where it belonged, so on the floor it stayed. And once things get a bit out of control, they snowball. Coming home or waking up to a clutter-free home sets the tone for the rest of the day, so you've got to find ways to assign each thing in your home a place, but that putting things away isn't so labor-intense that you simply can't keep up.






I throw all his puzzle pieces in a basket. It's easier than trying to keep them all sorted appropriately and pulling out the correct pieces is an exercise in sorting anyway!









A close-up of a bin.




Other examples:
Cal loves his Play-Doh and all the gadgets that come along with it...I have a pretty basket in the pantry that holds all of the Play-Doh accessories. When he's done playing, we scoop them all into the basket and put it on the shelf.

Another tip I love is to really look around your house at your trouble spots. For me, it was the random things you plan on doing 'soon', and just languish on your kitchen table or counter until that day comes. Biggies: library books, all those random things you intend to take back to Target or drop off at Goodwill, and magazines/catalogs I haven't yet looked through. I have cubbies in my pantry to deal with such things. Each category gets a bin, and it gets those things out of my way, but still in a place that I'm trained to check when I'm leaving the house. No more scrounging under the couch for a lost library book or working around that bag of toys you keep meaning to donate. And, no huge stack of magazines and Pottery Barn catalogs from 2009 that you will never get around to reading. I put new reading materials in their bin and get to them when I can. After they're read, I can either tear out recipes I'd like to try and then recycle the rest of the magazine, or keep it. However, I only let myself keep 2 cardboard magazine holders worth of them. If I want to keep one, I've got to throw out another. Limiting yourself really shows you how unimportant things are. Now I look at a magazine I've read and think "Why would I need to keep this?!", when before, I was convinced that I'd wish I could read it as soon as it was gone.

Running your house is a full-time job, for sure. So whatever help you can get is wonderful! Even though Cal is just 3.5 years old, he has his jobs for the day. They may not be very time-consuming, and really, it makes more work for me in the end because I have to help him and supervise what he's doing. But it gives him a sense of responsibility and sets the tone for when he's older and will be able to do bigger jobs independently. We don't pay him, though I'm not sure how we'll feel about allowances later in his life. For right now, though, he does the jobs because that's what he should do to help out around the house.

The most important thing for me to remember is that it doesn't even matter how well he does something. I don't care if he does something well, what's important to me is how HE thinks he did. If he hurries through something and doesn't put forth much effort, then he's required to do it over. But, if he helps me sweep the kitchen floor and really focuses, I don't demand that every crumb is swept into the dustpan...if he has put forth his best effort and believes he's done a good job, then it's good enough for me. He's just 3.5 and my goal isn't to make him an expert housekeeper, it's to make him responsible and to take pride in completing tasks.

Same with making his bed. I don't require hospital corners, he's just gotta pull his blanket up and put his pillow at the head of the bed. But he takes his job seriously and, to him, he's just accomplished an important task and done it well!

Here is his current chore chart. We switch this up often, as he grows and as our routine changes.

And, that's it! Can't wait til next week, which is 'how you met your spouse'...that's an interesting story, for sure!