Before and After: Playroom Organization for a Small Space
It’s been one year since the pandemic hit, and we have been in our home with our kids for 365 days and counting! Our poor house could use a break from us. Since I can’t give it that, I’m doing the next best thing and reorganizing and clearing out clutter. Over the course of this year, we have seriously struggled with playroom organization for a small space. Our playroom lives in our kitchen – formerly our dining area. During the pandemic, our playroom has served as a virtual classroom, a lunchroom, an art space, and more! All this busyness has led to a lot of mess and clutter.
We recently withdrew our four-year-old from virtual school, and this felt like a great opportunity to shake up our tiny playroom. I’ve been researching Waldorf homeschooling and wanted to transform it into a Waldorf-inspired playroom that invites creative play by reducing the number of toy options and providing more open-ended, natural toys. In Waldorf circles, this is known as creating an invitation to play, but Montessori also practices similar methods.
Below is a picture of what our playroom looked like before we reorganized for a small space. Each of those colorful bins was filled to the brim with puzzles and toys and the stacked organizer held all our art supplies. While my girls emptied the toy bins onto the floor daily, nothing seemed to hold their attention. I often ended the day grumpy and stressed picking up toys after trying but failing to get them to clean up after themselves. I was giving them everything and it was too much for all of us.
Our first step to creating a Waldorf-inspired playroom was to get the kids on board. I declutter a lot – much to my family’s chagrin. I’m a minimalist at heart living in a family of aspiring hoarders and my efforts to minimize can elicit protests from my kids. To celebrate this big change, my mom bought the girls a Melissa and Doug Dust, Sweep, Mop set. I’ve had my eyes on this toy for a while and it did not disappoint. The girls couldn’t wait to take the cleaning toys for a test drive. Together, we cleared out the playroom and let the kids go to town wiping down the floor and furniture with their new cleaning toys and some wet rags. We even filled a coffee can with water for the toy mop (not recommended, but we didn’t care). The girls continue to use the Melissa and Doug Dust, Sweep, Mop set daily to help with tidying up.
Once the floors were sparkling, I started to put the room back together. Previously, I had many toys available in brightly colored bins. In going through the contents, I realized that many of the items I was making available had been outgrown or were never played with at all. I was able to cull about 80 percent of puzzles and games to my local Buy Nothing Project group (seriously, check them out if you are into awesome humans). The rest went to Toy Purgatory…ahem our toy library in the garage attic. The girls didn’t even bat an eyelash at all I was getting rid of; they were too excited about the new space I was creating for them. The girls had to go to bed before I could finish, so the transformation was a happy surprise for the next day.
One of the biggest changes I made in organizing our small space was moving the art supply storage out and bringing in our Wooden Easel from the garage. I will often leave a special message up for the girls or draw a seasonal picture for the girls each day. My kids love to draw and paint, so I also placed a small selection of paper and a rainbow of crayons and pencils (just enough to fit into two glass jars) that they can pull from. I left out a watercolor pallet and some paintbrushes. Minimizing the number of art supplies made it possible for me to decrease the size of the mess they are able to make, while still providing space for creativity.
I also arranged a small selection of our favorite natural toys (I’ll write more about these later) on the shelves, including a Waldorf doll in a basket, Melissa and Doug Lace and Trace Pets, and Areaware Blockitecture Habitat, and Areaware Balancing Blocks. I then hid a few handmade gnomes within their toys to encourage them to explore the new setup.
My kids raced out to the room the next morning just like it was Christmas Day and they immediately started to play. I even got a love note from K – my six year old.
I continue to rotate the toys in our Waldorf-inspired playroom weekly to keep the area fresh and exciting. Sometimes I’ll pick a theme for the week like space or Saint Patrick’s day. We’ve also added a reading nook since the initial reorganization and continue to make adjustments to our playroom organization for a small space.
I’m so happy with how the room has turned out. The shift from overcrowded to minimal has dramatically reduced cleanup time and increased active and creative playtime for my kiddos. Now that we’ve done this room, we have begun to look for ways to reorganize and minimize (we’re calling it Waldorfing) every area of our home.
Do you have a play space you are proud of? I’d love to see how you support creative play in your home. Leave a photo in the comments below.
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