Please, help me get a handle on DD's toys!

[trcy]

DD's toys have officially taken over. I try to straighten up, but it is overwhelming. We are in a small house with no garage. So things like bikes, scooters, ect are in the living room. I just don't know what to do. She has a large toy box, but not everything fits. Half of her closet is used for holiday storage (no garage to store them). We need to move to a bigger place, but that cannot happen for a while. Please give me your best ideas to deal with what I've got. TIA!

[SnuggleBuggles]

No basement? Bike etc could go there. If possible, maybe get a shed to store outdoor stuff at least. Open shelves and bins are more practical than you boxes. IKEA Expedit gets a lot of love for a reason.

[lalasmama]

When DD hit that stage, I bought a few Rubbermaid totes (the 18-gallon size), and would cycle a tote at a time, every week or so, storing the other two totes in my closet/laundry room/wherever there was room that she couldn't get to, or wasn't interested in getting to. Not sure if you allow bikes/scooters to be ridden in the house (my DD had "inside trike" and "outside trike", but if they are off-limits in the house, then I would also look for a different place to store them--back porch covered up? corner of the laundry area? rarely used closet? For DD, "out of sight, out of mind" was a HUGE thing for us--if she couldn't see them, she couldn't care less that they weren't strewn about the living room! And, it helped me feel better in control of things if I knew we only had 1 tote and 1 ride-on toy out at a time.

[azzeps]

Send your daughter away for the day to give you time to really sort through things. If you don't have space to store some of it for purposes of rotating in later, you'll have to get rid of some. It's hard but makes daily cleanup much easier and it's likely your daughter won't notice. Also, maybe there are some hooks you could put outside to hang up the vehicles? Best of luck!

[amyx4]

Our house is small. We moved away from one large toy box. Smaller storage bins seemed to make it easier. For example, 3 underbed storage bins. One for legos, one for nerf guns, one for wooden trains. Another bucket in the closest for dress up items. A small crate near the TV for matchbox cards. A basket near the couch for action figures. At night I hold the basket and the kids go get the toy that belongs in that category and put it in the basket. It's a good idea to get her started a few minutes a day to do clean up.
Things with wheels really need to go out side. Look for the smallish, cheapest shed that's available. Rubbermaid makes outdoor bins available at Home Depot. Do you have a bulkhead? In our last house, we put the bikes in the bulkhead.

[Katigre]

DD's toys have officially taken over. I try to straighten up, but it is overwhelming. We are in a small house with no garage. So things like bikes, scooters, ect are in the living room. I just don't know what to do. She has a large toy box, but not everything fits. Half of her closet is used for holiday storage (no garage to store them). We need to move to a bigger place, but that cannot happen for a while. Please give me your best ideas to deal with what I've got. TIA!

We moved from a small house/no garage situation last year. Here is what we did:

1. Bikes/scooters went in the basement or against the house outside.

2. Toys were stored in the bedroom not living room. I had 3 kids at the time and we had a bookshelf, under bed toy storage, and a 2xw Expedit. Fire one child you can do half that. Poor each grouping of toys on its own plastic bin with lid. Don't keep all the toys out, just 6 bins at a time. And purge books too - you CAN have too many books.

Under bed storage was a lifesaver - we kept our train set under there.

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[AshleyAnn]

Can you get a small shed for outside storage? Our bikes and things are in a shed, before I had that I just left them behind the house.
I used closet maid cubes (targets version of ikea shelving) to store smaller stuff and 1 bin for big indoor toys.

[trcy]

Thanks for all of the ideas, keep them coming We don't have a basement or back porch. We have had things stollen from the front, so I am nervous to put anything outside. A shed is not a bad idea, depending on the cost. There is just not a spare inch to store anything else. Closets are filled to capacity. I think azzeps is right, I have to get rid of some stuff.