Our Toy Story – how less is more.

Our toy story began nearly fourteen years ago when ,pregnant with our first baby, we lived in a two bedroom mid terrace.  The spare bedroom was lovingly decorated as a nursery complete with new furniture a couple of soft toys and a handful of baby toys.  Being the first baby in our extended family Fairy when she arrived was doted on by loving Grandparents, Aunts and Uncles.  Soon the toys spread from the nursery upstairs down into the lounge and after just one year as parents our house felt too small!  

We duly moved jumping several rungs of the housing ladder and purchased a four bedroom property complete with three reception rooms, making one an ideal good sized playroom.  Knowing our family would be expanding we thought we had this toy issue solved.  Armed with some Ikea storage our family did expand and so did the ‘stuff’.  I really struggled with that playroom, it just seemed that no matter what I did, how much storage I had it just never stayed organised.

 I soon decided that we needed to clear out a lot of the bits and I then got a little hooked on having ‘clearouts.’  Friends at the time were rather shocked at my drastic actions but I figured that much of the toys were not actually being used/played with in a productive way so I just got rid of them.  It certainly made downsizing much easier having gone through several cycles of clearing out.  The biggies growing older has led to less of a plastic influx for sure.  

Fast forward a few years with a relocation and a significantly smaller house, we appeared to have got on top of the ‘toy’ issue by way of our biggies being well….bigger and less attracted to the plastic stuff and our newly developed decluttering routine.  When pregnant with Bean I wondered if we would manage the toy stuff differently this time round and if we could avoid the plastic mountain of oppression!

… Our toy story is so different this time round, gifts for Bean are chosen from a carefully compiled list usually comprising of beautiful wooden items and Montessori materials.  I keep all his bits in clear lidded boxes and rotate items out.  He has about 6-12 items out at a time all placed carefully on his shelves, I regularly invite him to help tidy his things and he loves to do so.  The huge difference I notice, nothing seems to get broken, we have no missing items, it’s so quick and easy to clear away and items seem so much more appealing when they are presented simply and clearly.  Our ‘Toy Story’ journey spanned four children, two house moves, one upsize followed by a downsize.  We are now in a smaller house with less stuff but I am thrilled with where we are now!  Less is definitely more!

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