Inspired by the Organizing the Playroom edition over at I’m an Organizing Junkie’s blog, I decided to clear out our balcony, aka toy-cum-tools-cum-I-don’t-know-where-to-put-this-stuff room.
It is a very small space that was originally meant to be used as an open-air area for laundry. But the previous owner managed to cleverly convert it into an extra room by putting up windows and grills and a false ceiling! We liked his idea and have used it as our toy-cum-tools-cum-i-don’t-know-where-to-put-this-stuff room ever since we moved in. 
In the beginning (2.5yrs ago), there was, of course, very little stuff in there. But recently, it was getting so difficult to vacuum and mop that room without spending much time pushing stuff from one side of the room to the other! Besides, I felt bad for our Chinese tutor who had to teach in that claustrophobic space. She must be distracted by the amount of stuff in there each time she came to the house!
The Balcony Project
Since I hate clutter and I hate mess, I decided to DE-CLUTTER!!!
But I had a big challenge - a crawling-I’m-curious-about-everything-baby! As we had LOTS of stuff in the room, I knew I needed at least 2 whole afternoons to clear it out. Ideally, I should do it during her naptimes but since she only naps an hour per nap (just like all her other siblings at the same age. Sigh.), it would take me forever to finish this project!
I decided to bite the bullet and do it with her. I also enlisted the help of my oldest child. With one more pair of hands, things would progress much faster. He was to be my gopher, my errand boy. And he was a great help! He got rewarded with a Murderous Maths book (he loves maths!).
It was amazing. We were done de-cluttering by the end of the day (a total of almost 4 hours). We started when the baby went down for her nap. When she woke up, I nursed her and placed her next to me with the toys that had already been sorted and were “safe” for her to play with. We then continued to de-clutter steadily till dinner time. Then when she went to bed at night, I continued by myself till all the toys and games that needed to be thrown away/donated/sold were sorted out.
The next day, (Saturday), we had no school so I proceeded to turn my attention to the tools and the I-don’t-know-where-to-put-this-stuff lot. Tools are my dh’s territory so I merely dusted the boxes and ignored them! The other stuff were again organised into throw away/donated/sold categories. After throwing out 4 huge trash bags of stuff, 2 vacuum cleaners (don’t ask!), and 2 skate scooters, I now actually have space on the shelves that used to be packed tightly with stuff.
Organising them all
But, throwing out things was actually the easy part. Organising what’s left was tougher.
Sorting out the toys was the easier task. So I did that first. They were sorted into baskets : a) dollhouse toys, b) cars, c) balls, d) toy animals, e) children computers, f) baby toys, and g) wooden blocks*. I labelled the boxes by tying a piece of string with the appropriate picture card (for the non-reader) on it. (I’ll try to get some pictures of this).
Sorting out their card and board games was much tougher. The board games had bulky boxes. Which took up a lot of space. I then remembered an idea tossed up on the MOMYS Digest a long time ago – trash the box, keep all the game boards together in one place and pack the tokens/cards separately!
Brilliant idea! I did not want to use ziplock bags as they always tore due to the children’s manhandling 
So on Tuesday, I went to a household supplies shop near our wet market and bought 10 rectangular boxes in white. In the afternoon, I completed the balcony project!
All the boxes and game boards were labelled. The game tokens/cards were placed into them. Now, all our games fit neatly into ONE big drawer (from Ikea’s Antonius range) instead of occupying 3 shelves!
The balcony now looks so spacious and organised. Maintenance should be a lot easier now … till the next time, that is!
* Legos and MegaBloks belong in a class of their own. Legos go upstairs in the boys’ room since that is the bigger room of the two, with enough space for them to pour everything out. MegaBloks are kept in a huge Toyogo plastic box under the side table in the dining area since that’s the only space that it can fit.
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