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Declutter Your Life: Kids Bedrooms

Based on what I’m seeing on facebook and instagram, it would appear that the time after Christmas and before the New Year is the ideal time to declutter your life! For us it’s a perfect time to declutter because the girls are out of school and there’s nothing pressing on our agenda. For me, to decluttter your life means focusing on my girls’ bedrooms.

Declutter Your Life: Kid's Bedrooms - the 3 Pile Purge Tablecloth Method of cleaning your child's room StuffedSuitcase.comRecently, I purged my oldest’s room and painted it. She’s not a pack rat so it was not a huge undertaking to clean it out and get it organized. My youngest is another story entirely. She’s the one who wants to keep any and every little thing because it has special meaning. She’s quite the pack rat and very adept at shoving things into spots I would never dream of, so her room “appears” clean. So, I bring you Operation Declutter Your Life: Kids’ Room Edition!

Years ago there was a tv show called Clean Sweep where a crew would help purge and organize 2-3 rooms in a person’s home. The show relied on blankets being set out to make piles of stuff to keep, sell, and trash. That show has inspired me to come up with a great way to get my girls’ (read that youngest’s) bedroom purged and organized once and for all. I know that if she has less stuff, it’ll be easier for her to keep her room cleaned. She just has too much stuff!

I bought 3 plastic tablecloths from the dollar store. I decided to set them up in three different rooms upstairs. I’d prefer to set them up downstairs, but I didn’t think she’d get as much accomplished if she had to keep running up and down the stairs.

Mark the tablecloths with “KEEP”, “DONATE”, “GARBAGE/RECYCLE”

Declutter your Life: Kids Bedrooms - the 3 Pile Purge Tablecloth Plan StuffedSuitcaseThen have your kid(s) remove EVERYTHING from their room (I’m not doing clothing during this round). Everything has to find a home on a tablecloth. I’m hoping to get both of their rooms emptied in three days. Then the items on the KEEP tablecloth get placed back in their room in it’s “home”. I plan to help them identify each “home” so that when they are asked to clean their rooms, they don’t have to wonder where to shove an item; they’ll have a home for the item. The garbage/recycle tablecloth will be dumped, and the donate pile will be donated or sold.

I’ll hopefully post some finished photos once I’m we’re done! Are you working to declutter your life? What’s your top project?

Kimberly Stuffed Suitcase
Kim {Stuffed Suitcase}


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Christina

Monday 6th of January 2014

This is a great post. I'm about to tackle decluttering our play room and donating all the toys no one plays with. It's a great exercise to get the kids involved with as well!

Kim

Monday 6th of January 2014

Thanks Christina! I'm always trying to think of ways to use my kid's time to help me out! :) I'm also trying to help them learn early on some of the basic organizing decisions so they can do better with organization as adults. Good luck with the play room!

Celeste

Saturday 4th of January 2014

This is a fun idea! My method consists of coming into their room with the broom and threatening to sweep everything away!We are having a yard sale next weekend and taking the money we make to buy shelves and drawers to organize the twins' room. Happy cleaning!

Kim

Saturday 4th of January 2014

I've tried the threatening step numerous times but never quite followed through. Also my youngest is really amazing at cramming stuff in the most unusual places so her room "looks" clean. I love how the new year creates this purge need in so many of us! :)

capturing joy with kristen duke

Monday 30th of December 2013

I love how you labeled the piles with clothes! We did a declutter before Christmas, as incentive to make room for new things;)

Kim

Thursday 2nd of January 2014

I had wanted to tackle it before Christmas, but life just was too busy. I knew it was going to be chaos doing the method I had planned, so decided to postpone it for the week after Christmas. :)