Kids bedroom organization

[waverly]

DD's room is overflowing.  Could you all spam me with your organization ideas.  She has a captains bed with 4 drawers under the bed.  I plan to eventually get her a loft bed, but at an older age because she is 7, and she enjoys cuddling with me still before bed.  

She has a nightstand, and dresser, and a desk, and an additional drawer unit.  And the whole thing is a mess.  We continually purge and clean, but I guess it is not enough.  I need all your organization hacks, closet storage, toy storage, clothing storage, book storage on a shelf.  We can put it all away and it looks good, but she doesn't keep it that way, and it is getting frustrating.  Part of me wonders if we need to get that loft bed sooner, but I don't really want to be climbing up and down and she doesn't like to get out of bed in the morning.  Maybe bed suggestions too that are not loft....

[bugandbibs]

I would see if how you are organizing is the best way for her to keep up with her stuff. The issue might be changing to fit her style. Also, I have a rule that the floor has to be vacuum ready by bedtime and I vacuum their rooms every night. This helps prevent it all from getting overwhelming.

clutterbug.me/what-clutterbug-are-you-test

[jenny1223]

DS1 is 8. I've found that no organization method or product will make my kid pick up his stuff. Beyond making sure that everything has a home and that the most used items are easily accessible, my biggest tips are to ruthlessly purge and make a nightly clean up part of the routine (for your DD not you!!). DS1 can usually pick everything up in 10 minutes for a normal day. I also remind/force him to put something away once he moves on to play with something else throughout the day.

[starryfish]

What about the cube storage? Love those

[waverly]

Well we ended up getting the loft bed from Ikea the Stuva. It’s really a lot sturdier than their bunk beds, and it’s a great price compared to other furniture places, but it’s been an entire day of cleaning out the room and building, and we are all exhausted. Still need to build the desk and put everything back into her room. We purged 2 bags of stuff but it can always be more. Part of my problem is her old bed- the mattress slides around and she had stepped on the drawer pulls and broke them. I tried to replace them but they weren’t all working. DH wanted a headrest, but since it’s an add on it didn’t match the bed. It’s my old bed and I don’t remember this many problems with it but it’s possible I blocked them out and I was older so I didn’t break the drawer pulls. It’s very high which is good because it’s more like a tween/ teen bed so she can definitely grow into it. We are all exhausted!

At first she was a little scared of the height but she adjusted quickly. We’ll just have to do bedtime elsewhere and then she can go to her own bed after, which is fine because cramming onto her bed wasn’t the greatest anyway.

[boiler717]

It sounds like you have a lot of space, so it isn’t as much of an organization issue as a too much stuff issue. I would really cut back the amount of stuff. What does she keep in her room?

[boiler717]

I think for kids to be able to pick up they have to really be able to see where things go. There is likely too much stuff in the drawers/shelves. This is my son’s room — he’s only 4 so less stuff. But he has 4 toys in his room, one for each cube. He doesn’t have to follow an organizing system because it’s just one toy per cube. The other 4 cubes have 10-15 books each which is too many, but he does “read” by himself a lot in his room.

[waverly]

We definitely need to cut back on stuff- we need to go through things again. The problem is our cat messes up toys in the playroom, so nicer toys are kept in their rooms.

We don’t have a lot of space actually hence the loft bed. I was tired of not having floor space for her to dress and play. We haven’t put everything back in yet but I’m hoping once we do there will be lots more floor space.

[nicolewi]

I hear you and I have no solutions. My DD has a giant American Girl collection that she wants to keep in her room, b/c she sets up some of the dolls nearly daily and likes to have them close by. We spent all yesterday afternoon cleaning out her room and trying to re-organize so that we can make all the doll stuff fit in a better way.