In Live Like No One Else I talked about spring cleaning and purging our house of extra stuff.
I don’t like extra stuff because it means I have to clean it. Extra clothes means I have more laundry to do. Extra toys that the boys don’t play with still get dumped out with all the others and then we have to pick them up.
On the day that I was cleaning I was prepared to purge and we did find a lot of things to get rid of. This top picture is how the boys’ room normally looks. It doesn’t look too bad, but most of those toys on the floor are ones that the boys don’t play with, they were dumped in order to find the ones that they do like.
This is what it looked like after. (I really wish I could say it looks like that at this moment, but I can’t. Let’s be honest, it probably looked like that for the rest of the day because the boys got sent outside.) We got rid of two and a half bags of stuff, some toys but mostly clothes. Two of the bags were headed to Goodwill, the other to our local pregnancy and family resource center. I also found a load of thirty items to take to our local consignment shop.
I couldn’t believe how much clothing I had for each boy, for Cameron alone I had over twenty shirts! We cut our clothing quite a bit. For each boy I kept:
*10-15 shirts each long sleeve and short sleeve
*3-5 good shirts
*8-10 pr play shorts
*5 pr play jeans/pants
*2 pr good shorts
*2 pr good jeans/pants
*3-5 pr each winter and summer jamies
*undies and cloth diapers
*a couple of sweatshirts and jackets in each size
*socks
There may be a few more of each item because there is always laundry waiting to be done at our house. 🙂
I just had to show off Seth’s bed making skills. I did untuck the bottom corner that was folded under but otherwise this is all his work. He is pretty proud of his bed making skills. 🙂
How do you decide what clothing to keep for your children? Do you have a limit on items of clothing?
How about toys? How do you decide what to keep and what not to keep?
You did a great job cleaning. It’s one of the things I dread. My toddler is 2 but has so much stuff that I need to go in at least every month and purge. I tend to get rid of almost everything or I’d be walking over items on a daily basis. If she hasn’t played with it in about a month I get rid of it.
Do you have to sneak the toys out.of the house? If I get them by the door Seth immediately decides he will play with it again and back it goes to the bedroom where it is.played with for ten minutes and then forgotten again.
Good job mama! I can say that our house is in a state of satisfactory cleanliness for about an hour before my kids mess it up again. We are fond of hand me downs. Whatever doesn’t fit on my son are kept for the little girl (house clothes) and the rest we give to relatives. In return, my relatives also give my kids clothes that no longer fit their kids. Very practical because they grow up so fast!
The toys? I let my kids decide which one to donate, the 9 year old is good at that. He gives away some of his toys every year. The little girl? Hoards. Everything is hers! LOL
I love handmedowns!!! That is how we have gotten most of our clothes. My youngest brother in law is eighteen months older than Seth, so we get lots of clothes from him. 🙂
Lol! I love your comment about your daughter! 🙂 That was me a few years ago….
I recently downsized our closets too. The toy room was the worst. What I wanted to get rid of they kept dragging back out! Finally I went and bought containers to organized the toys. So I let them pick out what they wanted and whatever did not fit in the box left the house….that day!
Thanks for the suggestion Michelle! I followed your instructions yesterday, I was a little surprised with what Seth picked to get rid of, I had to make sure he knew they were leaving. We’ll be dropping them off at GW today. 🙂
I feel so satisfied after a good clean such as the one you did here! Loving your new layout by the way!
I also hate clutter! But I will admit that I do love kids clothes so I probably have more of those than I should. 😉 But now I can justify buying clothes for Eloise because Olive will get her hand-me-downs, right!?!?! Haha, but I do make sure to get really good deals on the clothes that I buy and I purge their closets often of the clothes they are not wearing… because no sense in keeping it around if they don’t wear it! By the way, Seth is an amazing bedmaker! Can he come over and teach Isaiah!?!?!?
We really do need to set up a playdate! Seth does good somedays and then others it is very frustrating and I have to remind myself that he is only three.
If you get good use out of your kids’ clothes that is awesome! I love handmedowns, when I pull them out it can make me a little sad though that Cameron is getting big and Seth is getting older. 🙁
I have a Cameron also but he’s 12 🙂 I go through my boys’ clothes at the start of Winter and then again at the start of Spring/Summer. At the start of Winter I put all the shorts up and then at the start of Spring/Summer up goes the pants and the long sleeves, I may leave a couple down incase there is an important event/taking pictures or we’re going out to eat. The too small clothes i’ll post on the Freecycle site or give to family. Toys on the other hand are not so easy to go through, usually we wait until they break or we split them up in tubs, only one or two stay down, the rest go up until they all break or the boys decide they’re too babyish.
Thanks for coming by Jennifer! I haven’t heard of Freecycle before, I’ll have to go check that out!
I try yo pack up fall/winter items like you. Moving up to a new size used to be one of my favorite times every year. 🙂 It took all day at our.house with 5 siblings.
It is so much harder to stay (or get) minimized with kids, in my opinion! 😛 I did a short post on toys a while back, and touched on purging: http://atlantamomofthree.net/2013/11/14/less-is-more-toys/ 🙂
I’m coming over to check our your post in just a minute. 🙂