Decluttering The Girl’s Bedroom
July 7, 2011 by Marci
This month, we are slowly working our way through some rooms of the house that need some attention before the school year starts. We’ll be decluttering, throwing away and reorganizing. The kids rooms and the toy/school/tv room are first on my list.
We decided to tackle my daughter’s room first. I knew it would be our biggest challenge. This room is always tough to get de-cluttered and keep that way. One reason is my daughter is a packrat. She wants to keep every scrap of paper, unfinished craft project, broken toy or tacky gift she’s ever had. The other reason it is hard to keep her room clean and organized is that she can look at this mess and actually say “Why do I need to clean my room? It’s not that bad.” Really.
Normally, I wait until the kids are gone to the grandparents and clean out their rooms, but this year I wanted to do things differently and see what would happen. I wanted to try and let the kids help and let them make some decisions on what stays and what goes. Dangerous, I know, but stay with me. I had a plan.
- Empty the room. Literally. we took everything out of the room but her bed, dresser and desk. We even emptied desk drawers and took pictures off the wall.
- Deep clean. We vacuumed the floor, wiped down the baseboards and washed the windows.
- Move furniture. We moved the furniture to make most of the space.
- Add the large, must-have items back into the room – bookshelves, hamper, nightstand.
- Notice how nice, calm and clean the room feels. Let the kids come in and enjoy the space. Make sure they notice how much bigger and more usable the room feels.
- Ask if all the stuff that we moved out of the room really needs to go back in.
- Start sorting. 4 piles – trash, yard sale, keep, storage.
- All items in the keep pile must have a place. If it doesn’t, ask again if it is necessary. Find a place to store necessary items.
- Add the keepers back into the room in their proper place.
- Have some ice cream to celebrate!
Here are the results.
Pretty awesome, huh? Amazingly, the little packrat loved how nice her room was now and how many friends could fit into it, so letting go of her junk treasures wasn’t so hard this time! Success!! To help, keep her room clean and organized, we instituted 2 simple rules. One, she can’t come out of her room in the morning until the bed is made. Two, she can’t go to bed until the room is picked up with everything in it’s proper place. So far, so good.
Now, my son can’t wait until we do his room!
How do you declutter your kids’ rooms? Do they help or is it easier to just do it yourself?
Comments (7)
Eh, I saw floor in that first room. Looked good to me
Brilliant and a lot of hard work!
It looks great and I love your tips!
Awesome job! I love tips #5 and #6!
The room is so cheerful looking
Great job! I did this to my oldest’s bedroom during Spring Break. It is on the agenda for Summer for my youngest. She’s a tough nut to crack – she has some serious pack rat, hoarding issues.
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