cleaning – Page 3 – Plain and Not So Plain

Large family organization tips part 7 the little boys room/family closet

amy / 09/27/2013

In part 7 of our series, large family organization tips, we are going to look into the little boys room/family closet.

In our household this is how the rooms are broken down:

teenage girls in the basement
2 teenage boys in a room
four girls ages 2-8 in a room
two boys ages 1 and 3 in a room
Mom and Dad in a room

It wasn’t always like this, in the last 5 years of living in this home, we have moved children from one room to the next as they went through different ages and stages. Sometimes we would have a new baby and a 1 year old who wasn’t quite ready for their own room, so they bunked with Mom and Dad. Sometimes we had a 2 and 3 year old that would not sleep well in a room because one would constantly wake up during the night and get the other one up and Mom still had to get up with a nursing baby. Sometimes it was because of the amount of space that we needed to fit certain bed types. Sometimes it was because older kids were tired of crying little ones in their rooms. It was a constant move, but I think we have finally arrived at where we are going to be at for now. Well actually with Daddy’s amazing beds, there is no chance of moving those big sturdy beds, gonna have to stay put.

The little boys room has become the younger half’s closet room as well. This was the original room when I had 4 children under 4. They would all sleep in here and so naturally we just kept all the clothing in here. It was easier for me to be able to have a central location to put everything away.

One thing you will notice about our closets is that there are no doors. When we moved into our rental home they had louver doors. We had many little ones and I did not want to risk a pinched finger, we took them all off and stored them in a shed. I know for some it would be better to have a covered closet, but for me I just look past it and look at it as functionality.

Our girls only wear dresses or skirts so that is easy to hang all of their clothing. I try and have at least 6-10 outfits for each child. At least 2-3 nice church dresses and 6-7 play outfits. Sometimes we have more or less depending upon the availability at Goodwill. I hang the completed outfit and if it is a skirt/shirt combo that goes on one hanger. Much easier than digging through drawers looking for a shirt and skirt combo. Same for boys clothing if it is overalls or church clothing, I hang shirt and pants together. Everyday boys pants go in a drawer and shirts hung up. Same ratio for boys clothing 6-7 everyday shirts and pants and 2-3 church outfits. We hang oldest on left to youngest on the right.

Each child gets a set of drawers as well. Each drawer is labeled to help others, who are not as familiar with the clothing situation to find things easily, aka Daddy. Unfortunately my drawers are not neatly folded. I find that someone, sometime during the day will go through these drawers looking for things and mess up all my folding. I have found that I can usually find what I need in that small drawer quite quickly even if it is not folded. So I take one more thing off of my plate and don’t worry about folding their clothes that go in drawers. I am talking about pajamas, socks, and underwear. I do fold the girls leggings and the boys pants. But that is it.

For the girls:

I do a drawer for pajamas

footy pajamas
gown pajamas
large t shirt used for pajamas. I find that is easier than trying to search for matching pajama sets at Goodwill. I just grab a couple of cute larger t-shirt and then they wear their leggings for pants.

I like to make sure that they each have at least one pair of footy pajamas and 4 t-shirts or gowns. We try and wear our pajamas more than once to cut down on laundry.

A drawer for under garments, like:

undies
socks
leggings

At the start of each clothing season—- fall/winter and spring/summer I make sure and buy each child a package of underwear and new socks. With many girls close in age, I try and get different colors of undies and different styles of socks for each girl. One might prefer crew cut socks, another ankle socks. For underwear they usually have same prints for different sizes, I try and get different brands so that I can tell them apart. I just buy the briefs for all of them— one brand had neon ones, and another had flower prints. It makes it easier at laundry time, as it is hard to tell whose are whose.

I make sure they have 5-7 pairs of legging pants. We don’t do tights as I found my girls don’t really like to wear them as they get older, they would always get a hole in them, and they were really hard to put on. Have you ever tried to dress four little girls with tights??? I switched to pant leggings, much easier.

For the boys:

I do a drawer each for:

pants
pajamas
socks and underwear

Boys are easy, a package of underwear and socks and they are good to go. I try and have 7 pairs of pants, dress and sweat, because I know boys, and they will ruin a few of those over the next few months. I try and keep my church pants separate hanging up, otherwise they will be wearing pants to church that have grease stains on them. Boys clothing does not last.

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We do not keep out of season clothing in these closets. I have designated plastic bins downstairs for those. Whenever someone gives us a bag of donated clothing, I go through the bags, separate into piles of which size child it will fit, make sure it is clean, and then put in bins downstairs. I throw ripped or stained clothing out in the garage and my husband and son use it for rags. The only clothing item that I do keep out is their bathing suits. I store these in a cloth bag on top of the closet in case we are invited to a swim birthday party during the winter months.

On top of the closet, which is not pictured, I keep extra packs of diapers—even though I use cloth, I buy disposables for when we go out. Much less bulky and easier when you have many little ones in diapers.

Oh and the tv is in the closet, huh weird spot right?? Well the story was when we had 4 little ones, This room was pretty packed with cribs and toddler beds, I didn’t really have a place to put a tv. The room was full of beds and toys at the time, no furniture to hold a televsion. So we put it in the closet, its been a good place, out of the way. Don’t think because every room has a tv that we watch a lot of it. I have found that if they can unwind from the day in their rooms before bed with a dvd or video , it is a good thing.

For the room….it is simple. This group of boys is little(ages 1 and 3), we have no need for any heavy duty built beds yet. I just repainted one of the older boys bunk beds with the same paint I did my trim with and made it look all new again. The 1 year old sleeps in a pack and play which is not pictured. I did away with cribs,after I realized how much space they took up. The playpen fits the same purpose with much less space. I found a thicker mattress pad at Goodwill to make it more comfortable to sleep on.

We decorated the walls with vinyl cling on stickers in Lightning Mc Queen because I know their choice will change over the next few years.

I don’t keep toys in rooms as it is just constant work keeping it clean, however I do have that red bucket you see pictured, that I let my 3 year old keep his stash of cars in. He enjoys playing in his room,and it is a nice quiet get away place for him to unwind during the day. He likes to pull out his trucks and play. I keep a couple of the other larger trucks pulled under his bed as well. These are toys he likes to play with each and everyday. If he doesn’t play with it regularly I take it out. We store these toys somewhere else. Just the basics in the rooms. Plain and simple.

Up next …the master bedroom

Large family organization tips part 6 the girls room

amy / 09/26/2013

In part 6 of our series, large family organization tips we are going to look at the girls room…

In this room, we have four girls sleeping in here. We had a few different bunk beds over the years, one with a double bed on the bottom and a single on top. That way we could fit a couple of little ones on the bottom, while having an older one sleep on top. I never liked that set up, I wanted each girl to have their own beds with their own special places.

In our household it is hard to keep anything that you don’t want others to touch, especially the babies.

I wanted to make sure that we incorporated a special spot for each of the little girls.

The teenage girls have moved down into the basement, they didn’t want to be sharing a room with the younger girls, which is fine, we just are not going to be doing any pictures for their rooms. They need their space, especially in a household this size. It is hard to get away from little ones always being around. The basement was a nice choice for some solitude.

Again, I thank my ingenious husband for his awesome ability to visualize what I want and then build it from scratch, no plans. Amazing man he is:)

We came up with these quadruple bunk beds. They are heavy duty and super durable. We will be having these bunk beds for the rest of our lives. You can climb, hang do whatever you want and they are absolutely not going to bend or break. A requirement for this large family household.

As far as making beds around this household, we make it as easy as possible. We use a plastic sheet to cover the mattress for all little children, then use a fitted sheet and a comforter to cover up with. Makes it much easier to make the beds with little ones. Plus if someone has an accident, it is much easier to wipe a plastic sheet then try and clean a mattress.

As for integrating a personal space,I wasn’t sure how to make some sort of shelf for each girl. Then when I made my “less than $10 ledge shelves” I knew that was what I wanted for their rooms. We don’t keep any toys in their bedroom, as I would be cleaning it up all day long. I allow each girl to keep their “personal favorites” on their shelves along with their purses, favorite books to read, and money. Dad likes to give his change to them and I like to pay them for special jobs. They in turn use their money for “treats” sometimes one will buy a package of gummy worms to share, or they have even bought a $5 pizza while out doing some running for everyone to share. Nice, giving girls.

We don’t store any clothing in this room. Can you imagine a room for 4 girls how the closet must look if I sent them to get their own??? For the younger half of our family I do have a family closet for their clothing. It made things easier for me when they were all little, otherwise I probably wouldn’t have been able to keep up on the laundry,if I was delivering it to many different rooms.

The only other thing in this room, not pictured is a television. I keep nothing else in here. For awhile we were storing their doll houses and pieces in the empty closet, but since I have grown tired of a daily messy room. We moved the doll house down to the basement to play with down there. This room actually stays clean for the most part. Amazing. I just remind each girl every morning, to pick up any toys that are theirs or they will end up in the trash. Most of the time they are quick to pick them up. It just takes doing a routine and them getting older.

How do you go about simplifying your bedrooms to the bare minimum and simplify cleaning? You have to ask yourself, and your children maybe, do you really want to spend the majority of your time each day cleaning up that stuff? How much time of our day is wasted picking up things that don’t have any place in our lives? When there is too much of things in a room, it gets spread around, trampled on, lost, and can just be a big pest. With fewer things, the stuff is enjoyed more and usually better cared for. It is easier to manage a few things that a lot of things.

When my first set of children were young, I never followed this rule. I had their rooms all decked out with all the neatest toys, all arranged neatly. They had porcelain dolls lined up on shelves, train sets under their beds, and toy boxes filled with toys. And do you know that I spent most of my days, cleaning up their rooms and it seems that they more just made a mess instead of playing with their toys? Now that I have my next set of children, I give them a small box of toys and they play much more contently with just those toys. Clean up in their room takes about 30 seconds of my time. But a plus of having very little toys is that it is easier for them to pick up their rooms. I could of never asked my 2 year old to clean their room when there was toys jammed into every corner, that was overwhelming for any person. But a room with one box and I say place all your trucks into the box, turns it into an easy task for a 2 year old.

Start today, bless others with your stuff. Everything that you own, ultimately belongs to God. How materialistic have you become? Are we utilizing the gifts, money, that God has given to us wisely? Do we feel the need to spend it on toys and material possessions that are not pleasing to God? Materialism in our culture is a constant battle to fight. We need to redirect our paths and purpose in life to serving and blessing others instead of accumulating for ourselves.

Up next….the little boys room