Nolan’s Room

Ah, yes. The kids rooms. My son is 4 and a collector of all the good toys. A few months ago, we went ahead and added toy storage in his room. I’ve never been one to just only have a single play space & I recognized he liked going into his room to play at times. We went ahead and added 2 IKEA units, which I don’t regret BUT it probably is way more than he needs. I do try to keep it mostly under control and empty. He also got a drum set at Christmas so there’s that. Don’t ask Santa what she was thinking. We’re all fine over here.

So how did I tackle his room? Let’s go through the steps.

1. I started by asking him what his keep items were. This helps me understand where his head is at. Is he really picking good items? Is it so bad he has no idea?? He actually did pretty good.
2. I then ask him to pick his for sure give away items. He picked 2 stuffies right away. I know that means I can further attack the pile. He also picked items that weren’t his so I knew I could also spend some time making sure items that weren’t his needed to go in the correct spaces.
3. I started by sorting the bins after I had my direction. My goal was about half of the bins empty. So I thought through that as I sorted. Most of the bins weren’t too bad, but just sorting like with like helped me realize a) wasn’t so bad b) instead of having 2 small bins for items, to utilize the larger orange bins. That is why they are there, no?
4. After sorting the bins, I went through the floor. The reason I didn’t attack the floor first in this case is because the floor wasn’t that bad. If you cannot walk into the room, you may want to reverse these steps.
5. Once that was figured out I thought about what furniture I could re-arrange or remove. He had a side table that was no longer needed because we got those new toy storage bins but it had been sitting in a random spot for months. I moved it to the playroom and got rid of a broken basket. I cleared off his little play table and moved it to the end of his bed. I took the stuff at the end of his bed and moved it to the toy storage area since I had plenty of space.
6. I went ahead and went through his closet as well – he was not really using all his dress-up clothes and for sure some blankets could say goodbye. It is not drastic, but when you walk in you feel it.

That’s really it. I did the initial steps with Nolan in the Minimal Mom Mentorship group body double session and then I tackled the rest the next day. It took a little over an hour I believe to get it all to a good place. Now he eats breakfast at his table and chairs every day and it’s ADORABLE. Unfortunately, kids spaces just need regular maintenance. It’s just the reality. I probably could have gone further, but today was just not the day. 2 big boxes, a trash bag and lots of space later the progress was still worth it.