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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