ORC Week 4 | Fixing & Organising the Kids Room

Two things happened. One: I tidied (more on that in a min). And two: the sodding bed broke. You know those two beds that I just finished upholstering last week? Yeah, one of those.

So yes, we are in week four of the One Room Challenge, and I am giving my kids a bright bedroom makeover.

When Things Go Wrong

I mentioned that I didn’t recommend the bed frames I used because the wood was very soft. One of them had actually broken in our recent house move. The movers just shoved a few big screws in and hoped I wouldn’t notice. (I did.)

Then last week, my super skinny six-year-old hopped down from standing on his sister’s bed and his tiny bottom apparently landed on the weakest spot of the sideboard, where there’s a gap in the slat supports. Pretty much where the sun is shining on the sideboard in that pic above. The whole thing cracked.

The kid weighs like 35 lbs. He’s tiny, and it doesn’t say a lot about the quality of the bed that it broke. Fortunately, the fabric held it together, so it didn’t split all the way in two.

Fixing the Bed

I picked the staples out, shoved some wood glue in the cracks and drove a whole bunch of long wood screws in to bring it all back to the right shape. Super professional.

I wanted to replace the two supports with one long, thicker one, but they’re glued on, so instead I added a brace underneath. It’s stronger than it looks.

Now the whole thing’s put back together, you can’t tell it was damaged. I switched the beds over, so the damaged sideboard now sits against the wall. I’m hoping that if no-one sits on it again, it’ll hold for a good while. So far, so good.

Organising the Kids Room

On to the second thing: tidying and organising. It’s impossible to design a cohesive, beautiful room without reasonable organisation, so that was my plan this week.

Clothing

I started by pairing down both kids’ wardrobes and getting rid of stuff that they’d outgrown. They share one dresser, and the drawers were definitely overstuffed. Now, employing Kon Marie folding, it all fits.

Toys

We also went through all the toys. Sebastian is pretty good at deciding what he still loves and what he’d rather get rid of, so he had a lot of input. Admittedly, I went through Eleanor’s stuff without her around, because she’s four and she’s a hoarder. She collects genuine rubbish off the street (today it was bits of Styrofoam). She has spent the last few days playing with everything that’s left so much more.

By the time I was done, I’d rounded up six big bags of stuff to donate, eBay or discard. And from a room this small, that’s a lot of stuff. The closet went from worse than this (this is actually part way through…eek):

To this:

Having all the kids clothes and toys paired down and organised so they can see where everything is has already made a huge difference to the room. Not just visually, but also in how we use the space.

Everything Needs A Home

We were also able to make space for things that had been taking up space in other areas of the house, and we rediscovered some much-loved toys that had been neglected for months.

I realized during the process that there were a few things that didn’t actually have a home (like Lego manuals, birthdays cards and knick-knacks), so I bought a few extra storage pieces – like these cardboard suitcases – for those.

Functional Kids Storage

I’d love to be able to store the toys in beautiful baskets, but I have found that if the kids can’t see the toys, they don’t play with them. So my requirements for toy bins are that they have to be:

• Transparent
• Easy for little hands to open
• Stackable

We got the colorful bins in the closet for Sebastian’s old bedroom, and while they don’t match the color scheme anymore, that’s okay for now because they’re usually hidden away.

I wanted something similar for Eleanor’s things, and settled on Samla boxes from Ikea. They’re not pretty, but they’re very functional and super cheap, so they’ll work until I can find something better.

Next Week

I was going to show you the pegboard storage today, but other things got in the way, so I’ll save that for next week. That, and all the little finishing details, then I can call this room done.

MORE SPRING 2016 ONE ROOM CHALLENGE POSTS

Design & Floor Plan | Week One
Wall Decals & Shelves | Week Two
DIY Upholstered Beds | Week Three
Fixing & Organizing | Week Four
Space Saving Homework Station & Pegboard Toy Storage | Week 5
Kids Room Reveal | Week Six