A good declutter can really help your home feel cleaner, tidier and a nicer place to be. Here’s how to declutter a play room.
Decluttering a playroom is never easy. It can be difficult to know where to start and of course, you don’t want to get rid of anything that your children love by mistake.
But it’s also one of the rooms that can end up getting very messy, and feeling messy even when everything is put away.
How To Declutter A Play Room and Create A Tidy Space
Tips For Decluttering Toys
The first step is to declutter toys from your playroom. If your children have a lot of toys this can seem like an overwhelming task so you may want to break it down into smaller chunks.
You can either get all of their toys out to tackle in one go or do it with specific toys eg. cars, barbies, etc.
For the first part of this task, I would say it’s easier to do it without children around. Sort through the toys and remove any that are broken or have missing parts. These can be disposed of, mended if possible or recycled.
You should then be able to remove any toys that are no longer age-appropriate. Next, look for any duplicates. You can then decide whether to keep or get rid of these.
Hopefully, this will have helped you reduce your children’s toy collection to a much more manageable size. Finally, you can get the children involved in deciding what to keep and which toys they want to donate or sell.
If your child is finding this hard and wants to keep everything, one option is to put toys away for a set period, for example, a month. If they ask for any toys during that month they can keep them, anything they’ve not asked for can go.
You can then repeat this process with other items such as paints and craft materials. We go through our pen box every few months to eliminate pens that don’t work etc.
How To Declutter A Play Room: Invest In Plenty of Storage
Once the toys and other items are all sorted out, you may want to invest in new storage if you don’t already have some.
Some of the most popular playroom storage options are the Kallax and Trofast units from Ikea. Both of these are customisable in terms of both size and configurations.
There are of course plenty of other options – this post looks at some of the storage solutions we used in our daughter’s bedroom which could also be used in a playroom.
Decide which way of storing toys works best for you. Do you want all the same toys together, eg a box for barbies, and a box for cars or would you prefer three or four boxes of mixed toys that are easier to tidy at the end of the day?
Set Up A Toy Rotation
If you want to keep your playroom decluttered, then setting up a toy rotation could be a good place to start.
It’s up to you whether the toys that aren’t being used are kept in another room, the attic or just stored out of the children’s reach in the playroom.
Having too much choice when it comes to toys can be overwhelming for children and studies show that they play better when fewer toys are offered. They’ll also be very excited each time you rotate and bring out toys they had forgotten about!
Plan Future Puchases Carfeully
If you want your playroom to remain uncluttered, then you may want to give some thought to the different types of toys that you buy for your children.
Limit toys that only have one function and invest in toys that can be used in multiple different ways such as lego, playdough, dolls and anything that encourages children to get creative with their play.
Children also love cardboard boxes so if you have one leftover from a large purchase, pop it in the playroom for a week or so before it heads off for recycling. It’s something new to play with, without bringing in more clutter.
Invest In Blackboard / Whiteboard Walls
My daughter loves drawing. In one session she will create loads and loads of drawings that she then doesn’t want me to get rid of.
While I do of course keep her very best efforts to be displayed on the fridge, I’d honestly be drowning in paper if I kept everything.
Last year for her birthday her granny bought her a double-sided easel – chalk on one side and a whiteboard on the other. She can draw to her heart’s content without needing endless pieces of paper (although she does make me photograph some of them to send to her Dad while he’s at work!)
A chalk or whiteboard wall in the playroom is a great way to limit clutter created by endless drawings.
Of course, this doesn’t mean letting children have a paper it’s just a more environmentally friendly outlet for their creativity.
Rules For Tidying
Would you like your playroom to stay tidy and decluttered? It might be time to set some rules.
I know this might be easier said than done with little ones but we always tidy away toys before we leave the house – whether that’s for going to nursery, school, visiting Grandma or going to the shops.
We’ve had these rules since our daughter was little as I find it really hard coming back to a messy house. She can get whatever she likes out to play with while we’re home but know we always do a big tidy-up together before going out.
If we’re having an at-home day, we usually do a big tidy-up before lunch and before dinner so we’re not eating in a messy house.
Of course, if she’s in the middle of building something, eg lego, that can stay out or we might move it to somewhere safe until she’s ready to continue playing with it later in the day.
Other Posts On Decluttering
How To Declutter In 30 Minutes
How To Declutter Your Home Fast
Should You Hire A Professional Declutterer?
5 Easy Things To Declutter Today
Should You Donate Decluttered Items To Charity Shops?
