So this post, I don't really have any new techniques. But I do have some advice. We always organize the spaces that others can see first. We clean these rooms up best when company is coming over. But what are we living in the rest of the time?

Often, when we go on "cleaning sprees" we start with the living room or the kitchen. We still have enough energy to clean the kids' room. By the time we get to our own bedrooms, we are too exhausted. So our own rooms never get the attention that they need.

When I was given the tour of this home owner's house, I saw that each room needed some attention. But the "feel" of the master bedroom was total chaos. We spend at least 8 hours of every day in our bedrooms. It's the first thing we see when we wake up and the last thing we see when we go to bed at night. If the impression we get of our room is the aftermath of a tornado, how rested can we feel in it? How can it be the sanctuary it's supposed to be?

You deserve better. You deserve to have an environment that reflects who you are. You deserve a space where you can feel peace. I learned a few years ago that the only person who knows what you really need in terms of mental, physical, and emotional health is YOU. Nobody else knows what is in your head or heart. You have to be your own advocate. It's easy to be a ferocious defender when it comes to your children or spouse, but you have to give yourself that same respect and love.

A few things you can do to reclaim your space and have the room that you deserve:
1. Take the kids' things out.
Your kids have their own rooms and often a playroom. Their toys and accessories have homes other than your room.
2. Your room is NOT a laundry room.
Don't allow the laundry (clean or dirty) to pile up in your room. Use your laundry room or another space in your house, or just do your laundry and put it away. It's a small price to pay to avoid being buried alive in cloth.
3. Shut your door.
After your kids start sleeping in their own rooms, they don't need to come into yours uninvited. If you want them to come in, you can call them in. Otherwise, they need to respect your space. They have their rooms, and you have yours.
4. Clean your room first.
It may seem strange and selfish at first, but I promise it will give you the energy and motivation to clean the rest of your house.
5. Don't allow your room to become the catch-all.
A lot of times our rooms are like junk drawers. If something doesn't have a space, we put it in our rooms. Designate some other area of your house for this purpose: a linen closet, the basement, the garage or even a storage bin is better than your dresser or your floor.
Don't forget....you deserve it.

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Everything I need to know, I didn't get from the playroom.
For this post, I'm just gonna go with some of my helpful hints. These are ideas that I have picked up from my own experience with children, and from my experience of organizing kids' rooms and playrooms for my family and friends.

Books:
Bookcases are a fabulous thing.....until the kids get to them.
This bookcase was in the kids' closet in their bedroom. They had a separate playroom for their toys. I suggested the books be taken out of the bedroom and moved into the playroom. This solved a couple of problems: bedrooms stay cleaner if they are used solely for the purpose of sleeping; and it's a lot easier for Mom to get to the bookshelf and clean it when she's cleaning the rest of the playroom.

It's important to organize the books and make them look nice. This will not necessarily motivate the kids to keep it looking nice, but it will definitely be a motivation for you. In this case we put board books on the bottom for her youngest to get to, and all of the oversized books went in the bookcase on their sides.

Toy boxes:
The problem with toy boxes is that inevitably the bottom fills up with small pieces and parts. The kids no longer play with the toys in the toy box, because they cannot see them, or get to them without emptying the whole thing. I suggested that we move the miscellaneous toys to the cute tote organizers the homeowner already possessed. Then we put all of the stuffed animals in the toy box. No small parts or pieces to get lost in the bottom of the box, and no more trying to find room for the billions of stuffed animals that kids “have” to keep.

Other tidbits of random kid-related organizing knowledge:

*Put things on the top. If you don't put something on the top of a chest of drawers or a bookshelf, or a toy box; kids will put lots of somethings up there for you.

*Don't forget the corners. If you place perpendicular furniture together and leave an empty triangle in the corner of a room, you have created a hidey-hole. This is where you need to look for lost remotes, missing socks, and any other item you haven't been able to find.

*Go through the old clothes. Keep what you will pass down. Then give the rest away to bless the lives of others. Old, purposeless clothes in the tops of your closet are not heirlooms, they are clutter, and missed opportunities to help someone less fortunate.

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