I do my best to stay organized but with two little ones and a husband who’s organization priorities look – ahem – different than mine, it can be tricky. My motivation for order is to reduce stress and ultimately save time. I’d say the desire for tidy spaces is just part of how I am, but I am sure my mom would tell you I can make a mess with the best of them. As the girls get older and toys look different it requires different strategies so the “fun” part about this is that just when I think I’ve cracked the cleaning code, something changes and I have to try something else. But over the past few years a few organization MVPs have emerged in the Hamlin House and here are five hacks that keep us sort of feeling like we have it all together.
- The cube-and-hide strategy
- The shove-it-in-a-basket strategy
- The shove-it-in-a-different-basket strategy
- The display-it strategy
The cube-and-hide is my favorite sneaky organization strategy. A cube storage bookshelf covered in a fitted table skirt and with a glass topper is now extra bedside storage. You can see our “his and hers” approach which for a while held my breast pump along with three cubes with who knows what! “His” shows a new tennis shoe habit that is out of sight! We had our table skirt made and glass topper cut by local vendors. You could easily create something similar with this 4-cube organizer and this striped table skirt or this linen table skirt.
We have this shelving system with storage bins in our family room. Each bin is full of toys, which is another problem for another day! But for now, it houses everything from baby toys to Margaret’s Legos and Magnatiles. Each basket is somewhat organized by type – all the doctors toys are in one, puppets in another, tea sets/baking tools, etc … One day I intend to put labels on them but for now Margaret knows where everything is roughly and is self-sufficient in cleaning up, or at least she is with encouragement. Our shelves and bins are from IKEA, but this 12-cube organizer and these $16.50 wicker baskets are very similar. This cube and drawer combo looks like another great option!
To the left you can see one of our 3M clip galleries with Margaret’s artwork. Now that Catherine is scribbling too I can put hers on display next to her sisters. This is by far the easiest system we have and Margaret is so proud to see her work displayed. I also put up important flyers from school or upcoming party invites to help her think about her “calendar”.
The most recent addition to my attempts at order are two of these baskets in our family room. For a quick clean up of chaos, I shove everything Catherine has out into these baskets from Walmart and put them by our sofas. I feel better and she’s going to just pull them out any ways! If you haven’t already jumped aboard the shove-things-in-baskets train, having small kids is a great time to do so!
The last thing I’ve really leaned on recently are shoeboxes and even shipping boxes. I love following the Home Edit and have a weakness for acrylic organization boxes of all sizes. But, instead of waiting until I have the perfect boxes and perfect containers to get my drawers under control, I use whatever boxes I have on hand to create a little order via the Marie Kondo method. For me, this is a part of her method that works, and as I get more sightly options I’ll replace my torn up Nike and Amazon boxes into something prettier!
