I have no kids, but If I did I would tell them to fill a couple of bins with their less than favorite, in good shape toys and drop them at shelters. It is what I do, (with new toys) at Christmas. Nobody over 18 gets a gift from me. I fill a shopping cart at Target and drop it at toys for tots. I am so happy on Christmas morning imagining the kids opening presents. I feel like Santa. It is like I am giving their parents a gift too.

When you have experienced giving to the less fortunate It would teach them the value of what they have and hopefully a lifetime of thinking of the less fortunate.

By the way, for actual storage options, I really like the bins from 3 sprouts if you want something cute and modern. They are really big and good for corralling stuffed animals. I also like the Ikea cube storage a lot and it can double as bookshelves if you get the taller ones, or a place to put a dollhouse or things the kids need to reach if you get the lower one.

Tj Maxx/Homegoods/Marshalls are good places to get nice big bins with lids for a reasonable price (like the ones you see at West Elm for $100). I have finally cleared my downstairs from visible toys by putting smaller bins into my dining room buffet and using a storage ottoman in the TV room.

We raised two kids. When they were really little, it was easy to stealthily purge things that weren't getting "play time". As they got older, with better memories, that was more difficult to do. So, when things built up to where storage in their own rooms was difficult, we would have a purge party to make way for new things. Party for me, I should say. Not so much for them. One of my favorite photos of my son is of him at age 5 or so, picking up a disaster of a room (TOO MANY THINGS!), his face dotted with splotches and tears. I laugh thinking about it. :) Oh, the inhumanity of it all! I was such a mean mom! LOL

Oh yes, I remember well the days when I couldn't run the vacuum cleaner in their rooms because of all the stuff in my way..... Those were the days when the box heading for Goodwill, or the Battered Women's shelter, or my garage sale, would appear in the hallway.

To be fair, there was plenty of storage for games/puzzles/bins of legos in our basement. Not as tidy as the picture above that Emily posted, but it was a big double door closet with shelves for that specific purpose. The kids each had a large shelving system in their rooms for their more personal, precious stuff. I let them keep their rooms messier than I'd like, but the rule was I had to be able to see the floor to vacuum. If things were in public areas of the house, or if things got left out/around the house, I enforced a rule my father used on me. Items were held for an undetermined time and had to be earned back. :)

My kids are hoarders, parting with their treasures is so difficult for them. I, on the other hand, have OCD and can't stand clutter. I like your father's rules rredpenn, I need to use them with my two kiddos. Perhaps they would keep their stuff cleaned up more.

All I had to see was my dad stomping around the house with a paper grocery sack, and I knew I better claim my homework papers, my games and anything else I cared about that was in "public" space. :)

Once the kids get of a reasoning age, say 3 or 4, they need to "share their toys with kids who have none". For every new toy, they part with one. It helps keep the amount of toys to a minimum. Let them decide which they can give up to get a new one. Let them take it to the donation center and be a positive event. Caring is sharing.

Most of my toys were hand-me-downs from older cousins and family friends. I'd get a few new ones on gift giving holidays. I don't know how much my parents influenced it, but many of my family members gave me US Savings Bonds or money when I was a child (before I started school and started asking for things my friends had) which my parents used to start me a savings account that was turned over to me when I started college. I used to love those special trips to the bank to deposit the checks, get a lollipop from the cashier, and see the numbers in my bank book get bigger and bigger. LOL! Our family kept board games and puzzles in a cabinet in the basement because they were played by everyone. My personal toys, dolls, stuffed animals, legos, etc. all had to fit in the toybox my father built for me out of plywood (you never see those anymore because apparently the lid dropping could injure someone). Toys left anywhere outside my room inside the house had a tendency to disappear permanently if I wasn't actually in the act of playing with them - which taught me to pick up. Toys left in the yard got chewed up by the dog so that didn't happen much either. I was expected to put all my toys away in the toybox at the end of the day except for the teddy bear or other stuffed animal I slept with.

I found a rotation approach is best- put away a bin of toys, bring back out in 6-12 months. The child has grown, looks at and plays differently with same toys! Sometimes they remember them, sometimes not- really!

It's a fine line, getting them (or really, any of us) to take care of and value their things but not get so attached to them. I've just tried to let my child know it's ok to get rid of stuff. For organizing, just everything has to have a place and not be blocking something else. If that's impossible then that is the rotating, just back to front as things become popular.

Ironically, my father still has all his childhood toys in the original toybox he had as a child. He has his Smith Miller trucks, all sorts of toy tin cars and friction cars, and even his old teddy bear. They're worth a bundle now since most toys get broken by the children or thrown away when the children outgrow them. I found the photos on the internet of some toys that are the same models as my dad's.

Four boys. We had a Lego bin, Power Ranger bins etc. one toy with one bin. I kept all the bins in their rooms and rotated 4 bins in the family room at any one time..

Agree with those suggesting sharing with those less fortunate when there is just no space. Children love this as well. Some suggestions for donations: homeless shelters (as mentioned); Toys for Tots if they are gently used; consignment shops for infants/children (you can get a bit of money as a return and children can add to their piggy banks); yard sales/church bazaars and children can keep the earnings as well; hospital/therapy centers; university early education centers; child/daycare centers; younger cousins/relatives; doctors' offices waiting rooms; of course Goodwill/Savers/Lamplighters/Salvation Army. More suggestions anyone?

Rotation, as a few have pointed out. Also along that line, I had a backpack with some good portable toys that only came out for times such as waiting through sister's gymnastics class, and another larger tote of games and toys to take on trips to grandparents.
When it came time to give some toys or books away, I would post them on our local freecycle list. I think there are similar groups in many areas.

We sorted outgrown toys as store, give away, or put on undecided hold in the basement then sorted those 1-2/year. Best toys were wooden building blocks, legos, dolls, and toddler kitchen. After that, arts and crafts supplies. Worst toys: battery/electric. We indulged in music and books. Stuffed toys were loved but hard to keep clean or pass on.

I found my kids were overwhelmed with so many options. You want to give your kids the best plus birthday parties and holidays lead to needing more storage for more stuff. I did a huge purge even before the normal birthday/holiday one and it made things so much better! The kids have the toys they love rather than the toys they like, there is less to clean up and other children have something to play with.

Your system and space is great, I'd just par it down- you will be amazed at how less really is more.

I have a daughter who hoards, and as a result, I have had to go to the other extreme. After toddlerdom was done for both kids, they would never want to let go of things. So I created a secret staging room in the attic. If I removed something from their rooma and put in the attic storage and they didn't ask for it for six months, then I had legitimate reason to hand it on to someone less fortunate. They couldn't argue with that! One in and one out is my motto now (and we are onto clothes now that she is a teenager!)

We're just moving in to our new home. Our kids are 2 yrs apart and under 10 yrs old. For a awhile before the move passing the older toys to the youngest then into the yard sale pile worked fine. But we haven't had yard sales for a awhile and the gifts kept coming and the toys started to pile up! As we are settling in we have the boys sort out the educational toys & books & some activity toys (cars etc) to keep and they are donating the older toys to local daycares and good will outlets to teach them to share there fun with other kids.

wow. never had that problem. maybe stop buying 15 toys for each child for Christmas?

I often see a remodel or makeover show on TV where people are complaining about being crowded and short on space. I usually say, "If they just had some discipline regarding all the kid plastic, this would be a great house/room, etc." Band together with a group of other moms and limit each household's toys to a certain number - 15 to 20. Then twice a year bag them up and do a toy exchange with the ones your kids are less attached to. Everyone gets new toys, favorites stay and clutter is minimized. Don't let anyone other than you give the kids toys as gifts, otherwise you'll lose control, Don't give toys to other kids and cause the same problem for their household. No new toy comes in without an old one going out. Teach your kids to make decisions about sharing their toys with others and the less fortunate. If they want a specific new toy and it isn't expensive, you might buy two of them and let the child take the second toy to a donation center. Teach kids to prefer sharing to hoarding, and don't you or the kids get attached to a plastic, junkie toy just because someone special gave it to them - back to the principle of keeping toys off of the gift list.

As a former professional organizer my top tips and one big warning: Rotation and donation work well, especially when started early (age 2-3.) Kind suggestions to the relatives - tickets, outings, events, lessons, etc make better, read "more memorable" gifts, than more stuff. Giveaways before every Christmas and birthday of things that are still in safe donatable condition. (I work at a non-profit now and much of what we get for our childcare has to go straight to the garbage. Sad.) My older one was amenable to the "haven't you grown out of that, yet?" suggestion. The younger responded better to "think of more unfortunate kids." As they aged, they both donated toys to what they deemed worthy causes. BIG CAVEAT: After about age 3, never, ever, dispose of kid's toys without their knowledge and their permission. I've seen too many adults with over-possessive, hoarding & trust issues because of well-meaning parents who took their things. You can set prohibitions with other adults. But with children who are learning about boundaries, ownership, and trust, try to limit yourself to setting practical limits on storage space, and leave it up to the child to decide. To trash another person's belongings is just disrespectful. You never know how deep that wound will go or how long it will take to heal.

Decoenthusiaste, how many kids do you have and how old are they?

Limiting toys and donating old ones are all great suggestions, but the question was about storage,

My sons had flat Rubbermaid bins on wheels that they could slide under their beds. These were perfect for Legos and army men, because they weren't so deep that things became lost. Traditional toy boxes just don't work because they are too deep.

I know, busy - you think it is impossible to do that! Nothing is impossible; I was a mom a long time ago. Our issue was computers, computer games, and models of fantasy figures, but he makes a nice living at it today, so I can't complain. He still has all the fantasy models, at 40, but they're in boxes and stored away and he doesn't live with me! He's a collector and still is, but we managed to keep it under control. I think the only toy we still have is "Teddy" his bear who still lives on the top shelf in my closet!

I have a toy clutter problem. My son is. 8 and he has a ton of Legos. He decided he would mix them up and now we don't know what parts go to what sets. I don't know where to begin. Should I sort them by color? I find random pieces everywhere. I have a 4 year old daughter. She doesn't have as much of a problem. Another issue I have is what to save for them to pass down. I think my sons Star Wars figures and Ninja Turtles. I am overwhelmed and don't know where to begin! Toys are in every room of the house! Thank you!

Betsy1973

We don't live in a mansion or have room for a toy storage room. The kids store toys in tubs on shelves in their bedrooms. I hate not being able to vacuum, so I have periodic hissy fits where everyone has to muck in to clear up or else the vacuum cleaner will suck up the toys. At the same time I don't want my kids to have toys packed away that they can't play with and use. I find, despite having beautiful dolls houses, that they make dolls house rooms all over the place - on a shelf, on a book on the floor, under the bed, etc. My daughter has two giant tubs full of teddys and I gently suggest on a regular basis that she should give some away, but she fills with tears and can't bring herself to give away even the ones that haven't seen daylight in a long time. A few years ago I banned cheap nasty plastic McDs toys etc and if they bring these home I let them have them for a week and then quietly put them into the charity box where I suspect even they have trouble getting rid of them. I do recommend keeping some things - a box of quality, easy to clean, pre-school toys for tiny visitors. I also plan to keep quality sets like the wooden Thomas set, lego, Schleich & the rocking horse, etc for grandkids that I hope to get.

My daughter had the same problem with Legos (and her son is 8 too.) She sorted by color. Odd pieces such as flowers, weapons, people are sorted together. She also sorted out the instructions and they are in one bin.. We built her an 8' long x 18" deep x 3' high storage table for their basement family room. (We based the dimensions on the open storage containers she needed to use.) Kyle finds the pieces from each color. He actually uses the table to build and display his creations.

FYI....This post is not about materialism, but answers your questions about storage of Legos. This is the storage table/ working station we built strictly for Legos. Kyle has so many because his father and uncle collected them all their lives, and they build Legos with him. We don't want to give any away as many are already considered valuable collectibles.

I grew up in a family of 9 children. We didn't have many toys but, the ones we had we learned to love them dearly. When my sister passed away in August at her visitation her teddy bear was there along side of a photo as a child holding the same bear. Many cherished memories came flooding back of those childhood years. We loved our toys!

I think kids form closer attachments to toys if there are a precious few. When the floor of their room can't be seen for the toys, they all become worthless in their eyes.

Two boys, and we have WAY too many toys.

We use LOTS of labeled bins.
When the younger one becomes too old for toys, I give them to a daycare nearby or donate them.
When they have birthday parties, we unwrap all the toys right away in order to write thank you cards, but they are only allowed to actually open one a day. By day 8-10, they have opened the ones they really like, and I donate the rest.

What we did with the toys we kept... Toy boxes , shelves , decorative bins. If it didn't fit it didn't stay.

Any toy that wasn't actively played with in the past year was donated. That is way too many toys unless you have 10 kids. We had a rule Santa couldn't come and give gifts unless the children gave gifts of their gently used toys. It became a tradition that my children now use with their children. Kids don't need toys they need love and parental attention. Love your organization though.

Big, sturdy, more-or less stiff, shopping and grocery bags hopefully with designs that reflect each child's interests; one extra per kid, so toys scattered about the house can be collected easily and taken to designated storage area. If space permits, consider hooks on walls in bedroom or family room, or a shelf with hooks beneath - such bags can be decorative and easily accessable for children. Again, if space permits, a play tent serves nicely for storing large toys as well as for play. There are also wooden dowel frames that hold a number of slanted colorful bins, a space saving item that encourages order, and allow the child to look in easily, and also remove a bin to take to another room. Always a bookshelf …. for books of course, but also for display or storage bins of small items like legos, craft supplies, stacked puzzles etc. [When finished with a puzzle, please bag the pieces so they don't ooze out and get lost, and please oh please recycle/discard incomplete puzzles - how frustrating to enjoy a puzzle only to find the piggy's little tail has gone missing!]

Children imitate; if parents leave stuff lying around, it seems unfair to ask their children to pick up toys and put them away.

It is horribly unkind to discard children's items without their knowledge. My parents divorced when I was 13, and when my stepsister and I went off to college, we suspected a move might be planned. We used 2 small metal trunks for our treasures, each labeled on all 6 sides with "Do not throw away. Please store or ship to …."., a message which was ignored. The stuffed panda [I never had a teddy] my dad gave me when he moved 1500 miles away was in my trunk. I am now 75, and still ache about that; it took years for me to completely forgive my mother - my entire childhood was gone. In Ellen's trunk were her mementos of her mother, who died when she was 11. I ache even more at Ellen's grief, losing the last sweet remnants of her mom. And I lost my best friend of 7 years [before parent's marriage]. Ellen never forgave my mother and quickly drifted away from me.

PS Mom was mentally ill, hid it pretty well until Alzheimer's defeated her; I had known she was ill long before, which enabled me to forgive.

At Christmas my children had to part with two toys which went to the local fire hall for restoration before they could have one new toy. I am astounded at the sheer amount of toys I see on home renovation programs. No wonder children don't play outside anymore or worse yet, need to be entertained.

Can we give this poor person advice without it becoming a running diatribe against materialism? Good grief. Some of you sound like you took a parenting page from Joan Crawford in Mommy Dearest. The day will come when they would rather sit with their laptop and play online games with their friends with a headset on - and you will miss tripping over the 1000 Legos. I know I do!

What poor woman?

We gathered out grown toys to give away, with each new influx of toys, like at birthdays & Christmas.

We like to use toys as currency, we have little kids though. So how it works is if they see / want a new toy it costs them 3 toys to go away for instance. Also, if they do not clean the toys up from the floor we can use toys as leverage, they can either clean them up or mom or dad can and there's a toy price for that and that surcharge means that whatever we charge in toys whether it be one or two means those toys never come back, which is good incentive for them to be a little more proactive in taking responsibility.

?a running diatribe against materialism? Webster defines diatribe as "an angry and usually long speech or piece of writing that strongly criticizes someone or something …" . I heard no anger here, just common sense. Play is an essential part of learning, but loving parents also need to help their children accept that they can't have everything, keep everything,, that there is joy in giving,

It seems obvious from most of the above comments that real-life mothers are less concerned with storage than with helping their children learn to set limits.

I chose to answer betsy1973 (see above post.....I added a picture) by telling her what we did to sort the Legos. Some "toys" are valuable and no matter how many you have, you may want to keep them for generations to enjoy. So sorry, this post is not about giving away "treasures", but about how we turned toy clutter into a fun working station for dad and son.

FYI Some real-life mothers are concerned about storage, because some expensive quality toys are too valuable or sentimental to give away EVER! We have saved wonderful toys for generations. We don't hide them away in the attic, but let the children play with them whenever they want.

Re pleas for Lego storage: fond memories (now) of nights stepping on Legos in bare feet, shuffling so as not to step on them, and picking many pieces out of every vacuum bag. We used wide, shallow, clear plastic boxes, easy to rummage through. Shallow removable plastic drawers worked for the people and tiny things. Lego pads with a board underneath made structures lift able from ding to bedroom when needed. The years pass quickly so don't sweat it.

I've set a new rule with my 4 and 5 year old to have only one mess out at a time. So far, so good; it can be hard to define how big a mess, but it keeps things under control without forcing them to put away a project just because of mealtime, bedtime, etc. And when cleanup time comes, it's not huge.

For years I kept a Family Circus cartoon cut out of the newspaper on my fridge and looked at it everyday.

It had two frames.

In the first the mother was standing in a room littered with toys saying "When will all these toys be put away?"

In the second she was older and looking sadly at all the toys put away neatly in the attic.

Before I knew it mine were grown and I miss those days of stepping on Legos and toys in the bathtub more that I ever thought I would.

As a "nana" and "papa", we too miss the days of toys scattered all around. So we turned an unused bedroom into a toy room, complete with a doll house, bookshelf with rocking chair, and a computer for gaming. The large closet no longer has rods for clothes, but shelves for games, wooden puzzles, and old quality toys of all kinds. The grandkids love to come to our house often even though they live two hours away. (They actually hide when it is time to go home.) I am so glad we didn't give away the good quality toys our children played with. Even when the grandkids aren't here, it makes me happy to sit in the room of toys and read.

I have 4 boys mostly grown, I would rotate toys and give away. I always had a hard time getting rid of books. But I would rotate the books as a display with a toy that would spark interest. This display was placed on the closet shelf and door was left open.

We use to make a big deal out of taking used and unused toys to different outlets like homeless shelters. To donate. It teaches kids to give back. That there are those that are less fortunate . The kids would pick what they wanted to give away. At first when they were very young. They would only take one or two toys. But, as they grew older they would donate a lot more. Working at a homeless shelter when they were older, I think help shape who they are today. All my children are loving, caring giving adults.

A playroom is great. It won't look bad because it is a PLAYROOM. And you can let kids be kids.

First, it helps to nip the problem in the bud before it even becomes a problem. Parents need to set some toy purchasing limits, both with the children and with well-meaning relatives. My own mother didn't allow us to ask for anything that was advertised on TV or in flyers, and anything we whined for, we didn't get. We knew before going shopping if there was any money for non-necessities (stuff not on the list) and how much our share was.

My own daughter wasn't allowed any war toys, toys with weapons or toys that insulted girls (a rule that eliminates about 90% of the plastic junk at department stores). You can make their birthday a "book party" or a "craft party", asking friends and relatives to only bring books, craft supplies or supplies for your child's particular hobby or collection. She still ended up with more toys than we had space to store, but that was mostly my fault, because I didn't deal with my mother and ex-husband who gave her toys every time they saw her.

Still, most kids go through a "cluttterholic" stage, and no storage system or amount of cleaning and organization on Mom's part is going to keep the kid's room neat for more than a day. If you ignore the mess and keep their door closed, they will grow out of it eventually. My daughter's room was a pigsty until she was a pre-teen. Her class did a unit on child labour and slavery in third-world countries. Suddenly, realizing the true cost of her toys and clothes, she sorted out the lot and donated most of it to charity, without any prompting from me. She even washed the shelves and floor and sorted the closet. Then, when we went shopping, she would check the label and ask questions about where it came from, did the company use child labour, was it safe for the environment and such. The problem solves itself eventually. Now that she's and adult, she is way more neat and organized than I am! LOL

The thing is, this isn't really a problem unless you make it one. Kids are perfectly capable of running the vacuum, dusting and picking their stuff up if they want to. If you keep doing it for them, they never get to the point of being annoyed enough by the mess to want to do it themselves. So have patience. Eventually, you too will become a grandparent. Then, you can sit back and watch your kids run around dealing with their kids' messes!

That is a lot of toys