When we moved into our new house last summer, we honestly never gave this wet bar a second thought. We stuck a couple boxes on the shelf in there, shut the door and never really thought much about it. Our wet bar was about 10 feet from the kitchen so I never really thought about using it. Plus, the sink wasn’t in very good shape and we didn’t really want to repair a sink that we wouldn’t use.

This winter when we were stuck inside all the time, the toy clutter really started to make me lose my mind! I tried to keep most of the toys in the basement but it just wasn’t realistic with two toddlers I didn’t want climbing up and down the basement steps all day long. Plus, we were starting to look like hoarders because Caleb and Eli would pile up their toys and art stuff on top of the dining room table and sofa table to keep them safe from twin toddler destructive hands. I don’t know why it didn’t occur to me sooner that we didn’t need to keep something we weren’t using! We decided to tear out the wet bar we weren’t using anyway and make it into a toy closet with shelving.

This is what it looked like before. The picture is poor quality because we only really had one from way back when we bought the house. Once we decided to do this, I was so pumped about getting the toys off the floor that we ripped everything out without even thinking about taking a before picture.

We removed the upper shelf and sink pretty easily and then Josh installed shut-off valves to permanently turn off the water. After we removed the lower cabinets, this shockingly roomy space remained. Who knew those giant cabinets were hiding that much space?

We bought and installed a bunch of wire shelving for the boy’s toys and I collected all our various dollar store tubs floating around to organize them. Josh removed the old brown bifold closet door and frame and installed a new white one. I painted the new closet a ____ by Valspar from Lowes and installed carpet where the cabinet used to be. I love how clean and fresh the new color makes the space look.

It’s nice because we put Luke and Reid’s toys on the floor and first shelf so they can reach them fine but can’t reach Caleb and Eli’s stuff on the higher shelves. It’s a pretty big closet with a bit of room to play on the floor so it’s not uncommon that I walk in on ‘meetings’ like this one. Reid is trying to tell me to close the door again so they can play. Haha!

Honestly, it feels amazing once the kids are in bed to be able to shut that toy closet door and pretend for a minute that our house isn’t full of toy clutter. I only wish we had thought of it sooner!

Fighting the ability of toys to overtake our home seems to be a constant battle. How do you handle the toy clutter?

There were many things that I wasn’t prepared for when my oldest started kindergarten this past year but honestly one of the biggest was ALL. THE. THINGS. that came home in his folder everyday. Every assignment, school papers, art projects, morning coloring pages were taking over my life. For awhile, we hung all his projects on the side of the refrigerator but there were so many that it was beyond cluttered all the time. Then our twins started walking and found it to be an enjoyable past time to pull down all the papers off the fridge and onto the floor in the entrance to our kitchen all the time. All day long. Every day. And when I walked into the kitchen on piles of paper they had pulled onto the floor over and over, I began to lose my mind. The cluttered papers on the fridge had to go.

So Pinterest to the rescue, right? I found a few ideas that I combined into something that would work for our family right now. Caleb has wanted to be an artist when he grows up for a long time and it was one of my main goals to continue to encourage his goal and show enthusiasm for all of his hard work while also making sure we all realize that we cannot hold onto everything that comes home for the rest of our lives. And of course, I wanted it to look nice and not be a big expense!

I created a sign in Photoshop (but you could use Picmonkey or another free service) and stuck it in a 16 x 20 frame that we already had. I found inexpensive curtain rods to mount on the wall that were 9.99 each. I also bought rings with clips to put on the rods to hang the artwork for $4.99 with a deal on Cartwheel. I bought all ours in the oil rubbed bronze finish but they had other finishes there to choose from. We hung ours high enough so the twins couldn’t pull anything down but low enough that the boys could enjoy their work! We hung our art gallery in the kitchen but I think it would be great in a living room/den too!

We don’t put anything on the side of our fridge anymore. They each have 7 clips to hang something on and choose what they want to hang every day. When the clips are full, they choose what to take down to put something new up. Sometimes they really love something and leave it up for a long time and other times things only stay up for a couple days. When we take something down, we take a picture of the things we really liked and recycle it all. It’s been a really good system for us this past school year.

What do we do with the rest of the paper clutter you ask? I recycle as much as I can right away (information on sports he is too young for or invitations to groups we are already involved with or are not interested in), take pictures of event details that I know we need and recycle the paper, or I file things that we do absolutely need to hang on to in this organizer which sits on the corner of our kitchen counter. It’s small and doesn’t take up too much space. I try to go through it when I notice it is getting overly full to make sure we actually need what is in there.

Please share any tips you have for controlling the school clutter! It’s overwhelming to think of four of them being in school and coming home with papers!