Life in 409

This blog is about my quest to declutter my apartment. It focuses on clutter, decluttering, and the endless quest to separate the junk from the important stuff - at home and in life.

Monday, July 24, 2006

Night of the Living Plush

Well it's been a while since I updated and I wanted to let you know I'm still going along, doing my one box/bin/whatever each night and still not much else. My head has been reeling between making sure I check off one of those tasks every night (not too hard, now that I'm used to it), stressing over when we might be able to afford a bigger place, and thinking about the Kids Room.

Ahhh the Kids' Room("K.R."). Those capital letters are well deserved, as the problem is one of great importance. I have already posted pictures of the K.R. and it looks even worse these days, if that's possible. The problem is they just keep getting more stuff, but we seem powerless to get rid of the old stuff. I know, I know, excuses, excuses.

My main area of concern right now is the Plush Problem - the stuffed animals that are taking over. Now, I know there are all sorts of systems out there, like the storage nets that hang in the corner - we actually have one on the wall, but it isn't as big as I thought, and it is too hard for the kids to reach, and then there is the dust issue. I saw this one from QVC a few nights ago while flipping the channels, but I keep thinking it looks like something I could make myself (even though I would never actually do it). And I found The Zoo in a google search, which looks really cool, but seems a little pricey. And there is still the dust factor (both my kids have asthma). Still, any of these ideas seems better than our current non-solution, which is to keep the animals (a) lying all over the floor, (b) stuffed into those pop up hampers which I got from the 99c store and are already destroyed, and (c) in the Toy Box from Hell ("TBFH"). You can see the TBFH here. Or you can see it in action here (top left corner of photo).

Let me take a minute now and tell you about the TBFH. It's actually a great item, large and sturdy... the "from hell" part is more about my indecision on how to deal with it. Grandma J bought it when the Boy was little, and we used to keep it in the living room in our old 1-bedroom apartment. The lid is big and heavy, so at the time, it really was something only an adult could open and close. We mainly used it as storage for toys that the Boy was not yet old enough to enjoy. When we moved, I got the idea to keep the Boy's stuffed animals inside - it would keep them dust-free, yet accessible. The thing is, at this point in time, it is filled to the top with stuffed animals. And yet, there are still more stuffed animals all over the K.R., my room, the living room, and for some reason, in the kitchen. Also, considering the stuff that is piled on top of and around the TBFH, I have reason to believe the kids have NO idea that it even exists, much less that it is filled with happy plushie friends.

Well the obvious thought, then, would be to dump its unknown contents, and refill it with the animals that they do know exist... but I have a hard time dumping the stuff that was given to us by friends and family, or bought on special trips. So I know I'm to blame as much as the kids. I just don't know what to do. I also really feel like that space in front of the Boy's bed could be put to better use than storing the TBFH. But I don't have anywhere else to keep the TBFH at this point.

One other note about the K.R., I am really hoping that soon we can get the Girl out of our bed and into her own. But I think in order to do that, we need to buy her a real bed, and not just the little toddler bed she currently has. A better solution would be bunk beds, but then we run into an issue with the ceiling fan. But maybe we're better off giving up the ceiling fan in exchange for some nice bunk beds with drawers underneath... we'd gain back an awful lot of space along one side of the room... plenty of room for more stuffed animals!!!

0 Comments:

Post a Comment

<< Home