Reclaiming a Room

If you have kids I probably don't have to explain what happened.  I don't have to tell you how busy I am, how tired I am at the end of the day or how quickly it all goes awry.  I don't have to explain to you how this happens to my daughter's bedroom:

But sometimes walking in a room like this can be so overwhelming that you just want to walk right out.  Where do you begin?  I thought I would break down the steps for restoring order.  Not sure the steps for keeping order, that is for another day, another season in my life.  For now lets just figure out how to transform a room that looks like this:

Step one in all my bedroom cleaning tasks, make the bed.  It is big and quickly gives me visual hope I can conquer the task.

Next remove all dirty clothing, put away clean clothing.

I had dedicated a bunch of time to this project so I straightened the drawers too.  I like to stack her shirts on the side so I can see them all.  She is more likely to wear a variety when she can actually see all her choices.

So we are looking a little better:

Next remove large furniture that doesn't go in there and all the videos that accompany it.  Looking even more manageable.  And I added a helper to the project at this point.

Put helper on the shoe detail while you tackle the books.

Once the books are done the hard work begins.  All that is left is the junk.  The little random pieces that you don't know what to do with.  Normally I toss them all into a couple catch all bins on that shelf but the purpose of this project was to organize toys and cull the room of unnecessary toys and junk.  My plan is to put away half the toys so she has a more manageable amount to play with and then switch them when she starts getting board.  I will have to report on the success or failure of that plan in the future.

Today I just organized what was there and packed up some junk I am sneaking away.  A couple hours after starting the project her room looked like this:

(side note:  She has over 20 pairs of shoes.  Where do these things come from?  She has more shoes than I do!)

But then I decided I still had a little energy left and it was time to make one more change to the room.  I removed the rocking chair:

Yes, that is better.  More room to play.

Just don't ask me where I put all the stuff I took out.  And stay away from my office...