Scaling Back

Bryan and I took the time to tackle a project that made a huge difference in our living room. Most of you guys know about our library wall (which I still love), but it has started looking really chaotic. Shepherd's toys had gotten out of hand and it needed to be dealt with.

That said, Shepherd doesn't have "a lot" of toys. By that, I mean that Shepherd has less toys than most kids his age, at least that I've seen. We keep things very minimal, because it just gets out of hand so fast. I'm fully aware that there are so many kids out there that don't have what Shepherd has and that the following pictures show a lot of toys, but we try really hard to keep him from being toy crazy. We almost never buy him a new toy, unless it's a holiday or birthday, and even then it's minimal. We want him to appreciate the toys he has and take care of them.

Even with our minimalist approach, we became overwhelmed. Despite our best attempts at "minimal" the toys were getting hard to contain. Twenty-five cent (who am I kidding - those little toy dispensers are a buck now-a-days) toys here and there reeeeeaaaally add up. Bryan and I dumped all of the toys out of the various bins and cleaned things out. We organized what we kept, started a pile for Grandma's house and a pile with items to donate. Here is where we started:

And here is where we ended:

Huge difference, in my opinion, even with the crap lighting in the second photo. I forgot to snap one when there was still daylight. My bad!

We moved the books to the other side and repurposed some canvas totes to hold small toys. One holds vehicles and one holds musical instruments. It looks and feels so good to have it cleaned up, especially with our girl on the way. One of the round baskets is full of baby toys, which I didn't go through. I need to sort through and see what we are keeping, what needs to be washed/cleaned and what needs to be donated.

We also went through Shepherd's room and cleaned things up. He and the baby will share a room so we need to get started on integrating some girly-ness in his room. :) De-cluttering it didn't take long at all because besides a few well-loved books that we read at night and some stuffed animals, all of the toys are in the library. Most of what we dealt with were boy clothes and other various baby things that can go into storage until we are out of the newborn phase. His mostly empty closet is every more empty because we moved all the baby towels and blankets into one of the deep set Ikea drawers. It looks way better in there.

Anyways, Shepherd was taking a nap for most of the project but he woke up and helped me pack the toys to be donated. I'm not sure he fully understands that they are going to be gone forever, but he's got plenty to keep him occupied. He didn't seem to notice that a lot of toys were gone (fancy that!) and I'm patting myself on the back for a job well done! Yay for Bryan and I working together!

This is proof that we are slowing transitioning to real adults. ;)

Now I need to clean up the rest of the library. Most of the picture frames in there have the stock images from when they were purchased and the fourth shelf down from the top right side is filled with junk. Like our taxes from last year and such. It became a dumping ground for all things lost. It's looking pretty shabby! I'll add that to my list this week.

Hope you had a fabulous weekend!

xo,
Meg