Today: Younger Girls Room

I wish I had started blogging back when I started my Spring Cleaning Boogie a few weeks ago. Oh well, I may hit those rooms one more time before I am done anyway, so then you can hear about it.

Today's room is my younger daughters' room. They are just learning about keeping a room clean on their own. (For years they have shared in some form or another with an older sister or two, who helped them to organize and sort things.) As a result of trying on their own, their room has become a pigsty, mess, an art form of how NOT to clean your room! LOL Honestly, I am not neurotic about my kids keeping their rooms spotless. I feel that they need a space to call their own. Where they can decorate how they want, organize how they want, etc...if they break their toys because they chose not to put them away, they learn to put them away. However, I do have a couple rules:

• You MUST have a clean floor. One, for my safety! When I come into kiss you goodnight, I don't want to end up in ER. Two, for their safety! If there was a fire, you need to have a clear way out. Also, when you get up to go to the bathroom at night, you don't want to kill yourself or do a face-plant on a doll house. 
• Beds MUST be made. I want you to sleep well, so make your bed and nothing goes on the bed except blankets, pillow and your stuffed animals.

Needless to say, without their older sisters' help, those two hard and fast rules have not been working too well. And they still need alot of training. So what are we doing in their room today? Same as I mentioned in the previous post http://happyhearthomemaking.blogspot.com/2011/03/get-rid-of-excess-aka-spring-cleaning.html they are going through things and making KEEP/GIVE/TOSS piles. 

So far, we are in the middle of it now, they have three bags of toys, dolls and stuffed animals to give away. They have thrown away about a bag of stuff and their room is looking much better.

I have a part in getting their room in order. Last year, their room was the homeschool room. Then we decided the girls all needed to spread out a bit more and they took the old homeschool room. However, in the past year, I have been continuing to store homeschool stuff in their closet giving them no room to put their toys out of the way. So next week, I will be going through that closet. I will be making piles of KEEP/GIVE/TOSS, then giving them their closet back! THEN their room will be finished. 

NOTE: You will notice we will not be finishing today. I am making a point of mentioning this cause I know some of you feel it should be done in one day and that is why you don't start, cause you think you can't finish. You CAN finish and you will. Just take it in baby steps!