A "Pinteresting" Life: Making Space

T's room in its most recent state is an atrosity, monstrosity, eye-sore...you get it. I am almost embarrassed to even post a picture, but I feel a before and after is a must in this case.  I cringe every time I walk by. It's disorganized, constantly cluttered, and there's very little floor room for him to play in, which means my living room floor is constantly cluttered with matchbox cars and legos (which do NOT feel good when stepped on).

Cue Pinterest. I found an adorable picture on Pinterest not too long ago and got inspired. As you can see from T's before picture he has the staples to making this set up work, particularly the bed (kind of a staple) and the cube shelves. Now, I know the title of the blog this photo was taken from was "Decorating Ideas for a 3-year-old Girl's Room," BUT I am only using it for layout inspiration. And this layout is kind of the bomb.

My Inspiration: http://www.tinyoranges.com/2012/11
/07/decorating-ideas-for-a-3-year-old-girls-room/

So I started by decluttering the room. Literally, I emptied out all the toys into the very tiny space that is our upstairs hallway. I would highly recommend warning your spouse if you do this. I didn't think to mention anything to J, and he about killed himself trying to navigate the mess that was me tossing toys into the hall. Whoops. Once that was done, I moved the biggest piece of furniture first. In this case, that was the bed...and I totally should've asked for some help. And maybe made the bed up first (minus the pillows). With some struggling, I got the bed into the corner of the room and made back up.  I then moved the tiny bedside table out of the way and replaced it with the 3x2 cube shelves.

Once I got the spacing like I wanted it, I put the table lamp onto the shelves to get it out of the hallway and out of the way! I then shifted the 3x3 cube shelving unit so that it was centered under the "You are my Sunshine" canvas. This has a particularly special meaning to us as it was the first song that J would sing to sing T to sleep. 

Once the shelves were set up, I sorted through the toys and formed 3 piles: organize, give away, throw away. Throw away toys were generally happy meal toys from various fast food restaurants that T never plays with. I then took the toys in the "Organize" pile and started to organize them into bins. The toys that had smaller pieces were placed in a little Thirty-One bag to keep them from being lost in the organizing chaos. Matchbox cars were tossed into an old-school metal lunch box with T's name on it (Bought from Sarah + Abraham).

After getting the furniture situated like I wanted it, I was able to add in the toys and books that J and I agreed we would keep for T. After the toys were put away, we were able to lay down an adorable rug that was given to T by J's mom, which is a little town where T can drive all his cars around! Adorable! And plenty of room for little T to play with his "Basketball Arcade" now, too!

J and I are so happy with how little T's room turned out once it was re-arranged! There is plenty of room for him to play on his town rug or open up the tee-pee tent my mom made him for Christmas - without the need to clutter my living room floor with toys, tents, and rugs. I love how we didn't have to change out or buy new furniture to make plenty of room for T to play! It's so uplifting that we were able to make space (well, more space) for T without having to spend any money. Here's a quick comparison of the before and after set-up (Sorry some of the pictures are a little dark!).

Before (*Cringe!*) 

After (YAY!).