Organization is essentially

an ongoing effort to stem the tides of chaos. It is kind of akin to the story of the little boy with his thumb in the dike. It often seems to me that there is a never-ending FLOOD of kid related detritus littering MOST surfaces in our home, LOL. When you run a kid-centric household, I guess you have to kind of  expect it. There is not a single area of our home that is off limits to the kids. No rooms have locks...most only have (nonfunctional) pocket doors. lol. Nope...not even the bathroom, lol. Apparently mommy needs assistance to pee.



My mission yesterday was to corral the 300 odd kiddie books we own, relocate and re-shelve them, (moved them to the hallway outside of A's bedroom), and to dismantle, reassemble, and reorganize the arts/crafts/school supplies storage.

This is what I came up with...(after a few hours of sorting, culling, lugging...LOL)

I love milk crates. They make the BEST storage areas. They are simple, cheap (or free!) and can be configured in so many different ways ( I tie them together with twine to keep them together and sturdy!). I also saw somewhere (one of my mommy friends posted about it) using milk jugs for supply storage. Previously we had snap top boxes, but they were always a jumble of random supplies, which totally drove me batty! Now have a 1 gallon jug for crayons, 2 half gallons and one quart for colored pencils, one quart for markers, and one quart for pens and pencils. I'll add more as I get the right sizes (and I am trying to color code the tops, so I'm not just grabbing any old jugs, LOL) I also use the plastic 3-compartment tote baskets for things like stampers, stickers and glitters, scissors, glue, rulers, etc. and washtubs for flashcards, paints, stencils, etc. The lidded totes are for play dough toys (cookie cutters, extruders, rollers) and handheld games. At the very right end I have a re-purposed microphone stand, which serves as a roller for the roll of newsprint I got from my BIL :D The hat rack behind the paper roll holds all of my little ones lunch bags. Reference books, workbooks, coloring books, book readers, and puzzles fill up the rest of the spaces. :D

And the bookcases in their new spot. Funny, though, the bookcases were in the area that I moved the supplies to forever, and the boys pretty much ignored them unless I sent them to pick a book for story time. Since moving them, they have both been carrying books around with them. Even the little girls have spent more time reading. Hubby doesn't like where they are...claims there isn't enough walking space...pthddt, LOL. I like it...

I love the book slings. I think I'm going to get more of those!