Organization in a House Overrun By Kids

Children are a delight that can bring wonder, beauty, and joy into your life. But they also bring messes, lots of them, and they can wreak havoc with the organizational integrity of your home. Luckily, there is hope, and with a few changes to the environment you can help to ensure that your home remains calm, cool, and clutter free.

Children will do anything and everything you can imagine, and a lot of things that you can’t. Things will be moved, things will be taken, things will be played with and things will be broken. That is the nature of children, and there isn’t much you can do about it. That is why it is so important to get them involved with maintaining the tidiness and organization of the home.

The first thing you have to do is make sure that cleaning up is really, really easy. Storage bins should be big, clearly labeled, and scattered everywhere that the child plays. If they bring toys into the living room there should be a bin in there, if they play in the kitchen there should be a bin in there. In fact, there should be a set rule limiting them to playing and bringing toys only into those rooms that have the bins. This will allow you to separate play areas from living areas, thus giving you greater control over the entire house.

Another important way to motivate the kids to participate is to make cleaning up as fun as possible. Try turning it into a game of basketball where they score points for successfully tossing a toy in, and where they can even take turns defending the basket from one another.
The use of bright and colorful storage receptacles is another way to liven up the cleaning process. Decorate organizational items with stickers, or use chalkboard paint to make them an interactive toy in their own right. Brightly colored construction paper can make boxes look like giant presents.

As far as the space itself, in a child filled house it will be easiest to keep things neat and organized if you follow a minimalist approach. The more decorative items that you spread about, the more likely one of them will be moved, knocked over, or simply broken. Accidents are often unavoidable, so prevent them by not having anything to break.

Those items that you do want to display should be protected in cabinets, preferably those with glass doors so that they have some defense but are still visible.

Wall items such as posters or works of art are prone to the same dangers as anything else, but since they are flat and are hung relatively high on the wall, they tend to be safer than smaller objects such as statues and figurine. Kids are also less likely to try and play with a portrait on a wall than an item sitting on a shelf.

It isn’t always easy trying to maintain an organized home when you have children running around and playing with everything. By shaping your home in such a way that it has a natural tendency to be organized, you will make its maintenance easier on yourself and the kids.

This article was provided by Joey Pebble, a design professional whose work includes a line of natural drink coasters, as well as a variety of other products made from natural stone materials.

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