I appreciate the many storage bins, baskets and chests that have contained my kid’s avalanche of toys. They’re pretty—we have a few woven ombré ones. They’re huge. And best of all, I’ve been able to toss things things in there at a rapid-fire pace before guests arrive, and have my house instantly look like it’s straight from the pages of a West Elm catalogue—or at least like Fisher Price did not just throw up in it. My continual solution for getting rid of clutter has been to buy more beautiful bins. And now I realize that these containers have got to go.
We take spring cleaning very seriously at Lifehacker. Far be it from us to let an opportunity to refresh, reorganize and declutter our homes lives pass us by. We’re also pretty psyched to hit the reset button on our tech usage, take a close look at our finances, and give the heave-ho to the day-to-day habits that have gotten a little musty. Welcome toSpring Cleaning Week,我们克丽r the cobwebs of winter and set the stage for sunny days ahead. Let’s clean things up, shall we?
As cute as bins can be (have youseentheones with pom-poms?), they’ve become the junk drawers of children’s storage—dark abysses from where toys never return. I’m not talking about small baskets that hold one specific item, like Legos or stamps or little cars; it’s the hamper-sized baskets that can lead to chaos. Last week, I watched my five-year-old daughter frantically rummage through the toy baskets in search of in search of her camera, throwing Barbies, a stethoscope, some Tinkertoys and a ukulele on the floor.
“What are you doing?!” I said, annoyed.
“I can’t find anything,” she replied.
There has to be a better way.
I’ve been reading about Montessori-inspired play environments, and wondering if it’s something I can set up. I like the philosophy behind them. As Christina Clemer writes onMotherly, “The goal is to make the space soothing, so that it fosters concentration.” Tenets of a well-designed room include: 1) Materials are kept on low shelves so the kids can access them by themselves, 2) Toys are open-ended and “engage rather than entertain,” and 3) Everything has its own place. “Young children like order in their daily lives, and also in their physical environments, but they definitely need some help to establish that,” Clemer writes. “Montessori environments support this desire for order through giving everything a specific spot where it goes.”
A beloved piece of furniture among Montessori devotees is the$65 Ikea KALLAX shelf, placed horizontally. You cansee it at workall over Pinterest. I’m thinking about getting one.
With a shelf like this, the toys are visible, so they’ll be more likely to be played with regularly. I’m worried that since we have a lot more stuff than what fits into these boxes, our clutter will just be more exposed. But I learned that many parents who’ve created simplified play spaces also have a lot of kid stuff in their homes—they’re just more intentional about rotating the toys, placing only a small selection out at a time and keeping the rest in a storage closet. This helps kids focus. Inone studyby researchers at the University of Toledo, toddlers who were given fewer toysplayed more creatively and were more engagedin their play than those who had a crap-load of toys available.
It’s one way to help break the tyranny of the bins—the bins I have loved, the bins that ultimately might cause more headaches than they’re worth.