Looking for ideas and tips on how to make room for new toys after Christmas or birthday celebrations? Check out these great playroom organization ideas and tips. This post may contain affiliate links.
We’re a few weeks into the New Year and if your house is anything like mine, it looks like a Toy Store has exploded in at least one room, if not a few of them. Not only did the girls get totally spoiled at Christmas, but Moreaya’s Birthday Party was just a few days into 2013 so we added even more after that!
So, what do you do with all these toys?! It’s time to tackle Playroom Organization!
Playroom Organization
1. The first step in Playroom Organization is to cut down the supply. It’s always a good idea to purge some of the older toys that your children don’t play with anymore. We do this in a couple of ways: Some I sell in a Children’s Consignment Sale {if they’re still in great quality} and others we pack up to donate to a local charity.
2. Shelves and Totes are tremendous space savers and help the whole room look more organized.
We picked up these small shelves from Walmart, but there are a number of 3-Shelf Bookcase
options available at Amazon too. I prefer to not be the highest of quality, an inexpensive and sturdy version that is the perfect size for the girls’ play room. That way if they get scuffed or scratched, I don’t stress out.
Delta Children Jack & Jill Deluxe Toy Box with Book Rack, Pink/White
OneSpace 50-612ES 6-Cube Organizer, EspressoToy Bin Organizer Kids Childrens Storage Box PlayroomKids Book Rack Storage Bookshelf – 2 Color Choices
3. One key to organization is getting your kids to understand putting their toys in a specific place when they’re done playing. Storage bins and labels are perfect for this. I found our storage bin at a local garage sale, but there are a ton of Toy Organizer and Storage Bins
available. Here’s an awesome tip though… label your bins! It’s super easy and FREE and will help your children understand where toys go when it’s time to clean up!
What You’ll Need:
Children’s Catalog {I got mine from Lakeshore Learning}, Scissors, and Wide Tape
Go through your magazine and cut out toys that are similar to your child’s. I cut out pictures of little people, animals, and transportation toys – to name a few.
You can do this on shelves, like I did with our Puzzles and even more! What if you have toys that aren’t pictured in your magazine? An easy alternative is to take a picture of your shelves with your camera, print them out and put the picture directly on your shelf!
Although my girls aren’t quite ready to read, it’s never too early to start with letter/word recognition as well. Putting word labels with your pictures will help your children start to learn language, reading, and writing even when they don’t know they’re learning!
4. Rotate Toys, Special Boxes are a great way to keep your play room organized and toys to a minimum. Plus, kids LOVE playing with new toys, so if you rotate certain items, they’ll always feel like they have new toys!
5. It’s also a good idea to implement a Get One, Give One rules with toys {this can be done with clothing for both adults and children too}. When your child gets a new toy, they give one away – whether they donate, give to a friend/sibling, or even put into a pile to consign, this keeps the amount of toys manageable.
John says
It would be great if our children could just put those toys in a place. But as they have to reach that age first, we can make the job easier for ourselves. And learning how to organize can definitely help to do that.
I’m a DIY-er so I love making shelves, boxes and other useful things. Shelves really are tremendous space savers and help the room to look more organized.
A little while ago I made like a table with space where to put lego in the middle. I found this idea somewhere and I must say it really is great. My son get used to playing on the table and whenever he’s finished it’s much easier to put those all legos in that container.
Amy Deeter says
This is wonderful. i really need this in my life
Casey Garvey says
I need to find some more storage ideas! I am horrible at organization!
Barbara Riffe says
My daughter says I am the plastic box queen. I buy plastic boxs for everything.
Jessica says
I use plastic storage drawers, a book shelf, and a trundle bed for my sons room. In the large 3 drawer we have jake and the Neverland pirates stuff, the second is random small toys, and the third is packed full of 100’s of matchbox cars. In the trundle, its divided into 3 sections. In the one I have mega bloks, broom, sword, ball pit balls, and other random big things. In the middle section its completely full of larger vehicles, in the third section we have his trains and train tracks. On the shelf we have a bin with matchbox car play sets, larger toys and books. Then he also has a grill and inside that we keep some play food. Then he has a home depot work bench and I keep all his tools in that. He has a bin on top of his dresser that we keep his stuffed toys in and also his sit and spin sits on his dresser. We keep his megaland play hut folded flat and behind his dresser. Then he just recently got a trunk and we keep all his pretnend play stuffbin there like hard, dress up stuff, flash light, benoculars, and so on.
For my daughters room we have a plastic drawer set as well, a giant bucket, 2 under the bed storage containers and a kitchen. In her first plastic drawer is all of her Minnie mouse stuff. Then in a plastic shoe box container in the same drawer is her little people. In the second drawer is her baby doll accessories and a couple ransoms. In her third drawer is all random. It has wooden blocks, play balls, shapes sorted, stacker, named peg thingy. We keep all her food and dishes in her kitchen. In her large bucket we have all her big toys and balls. Her princess castle sots on top of her drawers. In the two containers under her toddler bed, we have stuffed animals in one and baby dolls in the other. Then in a pillow case we have her mickey mouse puzzle mat and rolled up she has a Minnie mouse road mat. Then she has 2 shopping carts and a wagon placed around her room wherever they fit. Her cozy coup is stored in the hall cause there’s no where else to put it. I so wish I had a playroom!
Cassandra Eastman says
Wow, I was just telling my husband I need to organize my son's toy room badly yesterday! Thanks for all the great ideas!!!
Darcy says
We don’t have a playroom which makes it so hard to tame. Everything is in the living room. Hopefully the toy room will get built on the basement this year. Love the picture labeling idea!
MamaLuvsBooks says
Nice job! I need to organize things SO BAD!!!
Ellen Christian ( says
I love the storage bins. Organization is one of the things I really struggle with!
Tazim says
great ideas – it’s so important to have a place to put everything. I find that that is the hardest thing to getting organized and having things stay organized!
janet says
I just cleaned my boy’s playroom and I need some of this organization! He is about to have a bday so I need to purge soon!
Nikki says
My biggest challenge will be step 1: cutting down the supply. My son has an astronomical amount of stuff, and he insists that he plays with it all. I really need to go through everything one day when he’s at school and start weeding out the stuff I haven’t seen him touch in ages. Thanks for the tips!
Heather M says
Love those black shelves and your room looks great now!
We struggle with this. We have a 3bdrm home with 4 people. What used to be our playroom is now our sons room. We built floor to ceiling shelves in there, but it’s not enough. Toys are taking over. Plus my son’s birthday is December 28th, so just 3 days after Christmas.
My dad gave each of my kids $100 in Toy’s R Us Gift cards for Christmas and then gave my son $50 for his birthday, We still haven’t even used these up! I’m afraid to go lol
Emily from Nap Time Is My Time says
We use the Expedit shelving from Ikea to organize my son’s toys. Each type of toy has a place, and he knows where everything goes. We’ve just moved into a new house – and have more space, right now I’m working on taming the toys! Seems that we have too many, and it’s time to donate a few!
Kecia says
First of all, I wish we had a playroom! We only have one child, but he has so much (and some of them are too big for the toy box) that I feel they are all over the place.
I love your labels idea…so frugal and really good for children who cannot read yet. My only tip was the first one you mentioned, clearing out older toys every now and then. We typically go through my son’s toys twice a year.
Amber K says
Great ideas! It doesn’t take long for a playroom to get completely destroyed, does it?!
Cecile says
Love your ideas! Toys can get so out of control.
Staci says
Our playroom is all kinds of craziness right now. I need to implement some organization in there. Thanks for the tips.
Julie Kieras ( says
We do all this! But I need more shelving!! The other issue is we have a lot of LITTLE toys with pieces (boys!!) and not so many bigger ones. So it’s a constant process of picking up!
Ruth V. says
Great ideas – especially the one about cutting out the pictures so your children know where their toys belong!
Erica says
I love the idea of using bookshelves for the larger toys. That’s something we really need to do. And I totally love that Dora puzzle – we have the same one 🙂
Tracey says
Great ideas! And love the pics. I’m all about organizing playrooms. We go through ours at least quarterly to purge toys we don’t use and rotate toys in/out.
Shary says
I love those bin things. We have some too!