Creating a Playroom Organized Our Home

We recently decided to rethink how we utilized the rooms in our house so we could create a playroom for our son. This led me to start organizing the rest of the house.

First, why did we decide to create a playroom?

• A space for toys that was not in our living room

• Bigger/louder toys cluttered up the bedroom and was not the calm sleeping environment I want long term

• A play area with no screen present

• The playroom can change and adapt as our son grows for a fun, safe space for him and his friends to play (and then hang out)

• But the biggest reason - I was sick of saying "No" - By having a dedicated play space, he can play with pretty much everything in the room without me constantly having to redirect him or distract him with another toy when he picks up a non-toy

What did we to create a playroom in our house? We created the playroom in what was my home office - so this created a problem, where does my office go? I work from home full time, so I have to have a functional home office. The room that was our guest room was tiny, so initially we were trying to figure out how to fit the office and the guest bedroom together in the smallest part of the house.

Then we realized that if we were making a playroom for all of the toys, Parker can be in the smallest room in the house because it will primarily be for sleeping. This meant moving Parker's room to the guest room, and the guest room and the office to Parker's old room. This ended up being a little harder than I originally thought, but I found a ton of stuff we had thrown in the closet when we moved in and never touched again. This started me on my war against clutter and things we do not use.

So how did creating a playroom help me organize our house?

• By moving rooms around, I found all sorts of stuff we hadn't used in a year and a half --- this prompted me to want to get rid of a ton of stuff we don't use anymore and now I have expanded that desire to the whole house.

• When we moved all of the toys out of the living room, our house immediately felt less cluttered and biggered - again this drove me to want to start decluttering other spaces

• Finally, my husband and I decided that we wanted Parker to clean up the playroom at the end of each day, and since he is keeping his space clean we try to keep the main area of the house more picked up as well.

So if you have a space you can transform into a playroom, I 100% recommend it. It is amazing for Parker - he gets a whole room with all of his toys. But I also love it for me! Our house is functioning better and I am saying "no" a lot less when we have free play time at home.