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putting it all together: boys will be slobs — er, boys

Filed Under everything else on June 7, 2010

I hate it when my house is messy. Hate it, with a capital HATE. It stresses me out to no end. This does not mean that my house is always neat (good god no) but it does mean that I’m constantly trying to keep up and not let the piles get the better of me.

That’s a fun task with two grade-school boys living in the house, let me tell you.

Little boys love piles — at least mine do. They’re happy to pile books on the floor, toys in their beds, and laundry wherever they can find a space. It makes me crazy.

Last fall, we decided that we’d had it with Henry’s room; it was nearly impossible to walk from the door to the bed. Our options, it seemed, were to take away all of his stuff or get him some new furniture with storage for the stuff. We opted for that second thing, which was probably good since a lot of the stuff on the floor was important stuff, like his underwear.

Redecorating his room truly changed our lives. He got to choose the paint and the linens and the artwork, which gave him a sense of investment in the space; he got to make the decisions about what would be stored where and how it would be put away. He had a lot of guidance with all of this, of course (because I am a control freak who does NOT want to paint my son’s room RED, as he first suggested) but he was able to work with us to create a space that we all love.

Wade was a little nervous about letting the kids choose their own paint, because our kids have … unusual taste. Fortunately, it worked just fine — Henry chose navy blue for his accent wall and a basic brown for the other three walls, while Charlie went for a crazy sea-blue for the accent wall and a neutral cement gray for the rest of the room. It’s just enough color, and exactly the right colors, for each of them, and the neutral base keeps it in line with the rest of our house, which is essentially all blues and neutrals.

Wade found these metal comic book signs at Half Price Books, and picked them up for Henry’s birthday. Henry loves them because hello, superheroes! And we love them because the design is cool. It’s a win-win.

This winter, we finally got around to getting Charlie some big kid furniture (his room was decorated in Nursery Leftovers, which was really sad since all of our nursery furniture was either purchased totally on the fly while Henry was in the NICU or inherited from various family members). Henry and Charlie have the exact same bedroom furniture, with one difference: Charlie has two twin beds, while Henry has a double bed. This keeps the look upstairs relatively coherent, even though each boy’s room is distinctly different.

It’s also a nice reflection of their personalities, honestly: Henry is an expansive sleeper (he takes up the entire bed, all the time) while Charlie is a snuggler (the kid never moves, I swear). Charlie loves the idea of having someone else — Henry, William, a friend from school, me — sleep in his extra bed, while Henry really prefers to be alone.

The boys are responsible for keeping their rooms clean; in order to keep this from being a Herculean task, we’ve come up with a series of strategies for each of them. They both have storage in their rooms — Henry has gigantic plastic bins under his bed, each one holding a specific thing (Bionicles, costumes, etc) while Charlie has baskets for his eleventy million stuffed friends. Putting things in the bins or baskets is so easy that no one complains about doing it. Much.

We also have bins and baskets in the game room (until recently, the playroom, but now that we’re TEN and ALMOST EIGHT, we are TOO OLD for a playroom, or so I was told). Certain toys — all the Legos, for example — live in the game room; when they migrate down the hall to the boys’ rooms (as they are wont to do) they need to make their way back to their home in the game room. Or else. The boys know this and they are good about keeping things where they’re supposed to be, which means fewer wee tiny sharp things on the floor and fewer incidents of panic because THIS ONE LEGO GUY’S HEAD IS MISSING!!! (The missing heads are a catastrophe, you all. Seriously.)

Your turn: moms of boys, how do you keep your house from looking like a junior size frat house? And are girls any better about keeping things neat, or do they just get prettier furnishings for their spaces?

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I have two girls and one boy, and NO, girls aren’t neater than boys! My girls do share a room but it’s a pretty big bedroom—they both have full-sized beds though one is a loft. It is a challenge to keep all their doll stuff in their respective areas (American Girl doll stuff under the loft; Barbie on other side of room), as well as their books (bookshelf) and various trinkets, jewelry and stuff they have on their dresser. And don’t get me started on the gazillion stuffed animals on their beds, though we have a few of those hanging pouch-like organizers from Ikea for their smaller stuffed animals.

My son has his own (small room) that has enough space for a full-sized bed, a train table (that collects stuff; he doesn’t play w/ trains anymore), a drum kit (oy) and a bookshelf. Oh, and a big pop up tent he refuses to put away; I’ve given in on that as long as he helps pick it up on vacuuming day.

Legos, etc are still in our common rooms, in bins which make for easy clean up. We homeschool so our house is WELL lived in, though, other than the arts & crafts, I think we have a pretty good system, all things considered.

Those rooms look great, Susan. I’m hoping to do the same things very soon with my boys - letting them choose colors, etc. For now, though - they have platform beds with drawers built into the sides and bookshelves as the headboards. They use the headboards to display their favorite lego creations and the drawers to store the various weaponry and hot wheel clutter that seems to accumulate everywhere.

They each have an additional bookcase with baskets for action figures and lego guys and, well, books…

Our rule is basically this: if it is left out in my space, it becomes mine - everything gets put away before bed. And ever since I kidnapped all their stuffies?

They finally believe me.

I am curious as I did not see it mentioned (or maybe it is and my quick reading skills were not up to par!?) - where did you buy the furniture? We have been looking for decent furniture for our kids that does not cost us a bundle for eons.

Our daughter who is still fairly young is good at picking up but it is hard to say if that is a girl thing or just that she has an older brother who has been extensively trained in the art of the cleaning up as an example!

Susan says: We bought the boys bedroom sets at Mathis Brothers, which is a local chain; I can’t remember the brand (Americana something or other, maybe?) but we liked it because it looked a lot like Pottery Barn furniture but for half the price. Score!

The quality seems to be good; we’re planning for this furniture to last until they move out, so it had better be. So far, we’re very happy with it.

The rooms like great! My seven year old son has the room of nursery castoffs and I would like to get him some real furniture (we did paint the room as per his request - red!). The furniture from your sons’ rooms looks like some I have been looking at for some time. Do you know the brand name. Would love a recommendation on the quality of the pieces. We’ve waited this long, I don’t want to fill the room with something that will need to be replaced due to wear and tear!

I always think design and decorating are best when the room reflects the people who use it most. I love that each boy selected items that reflect their personalities. As far as girls being neater, I think generally yes. However, my two are kind of opposite ends of the spectrum: My older daughter, Em, is a neatnik and keeps things very orderly and clean, she evens makes her sister’s bed. My younger daughter, M, is completely unfazed by mess and clutter except with her tootbrush and toothpaste-those have to be neat!

My boys are 5 and 8. They have lots of shelves with lots of bins. They know to at least pick the stuff up and put it in the bins. Every once in a while we have a big cleaning out where I help them put the stuff in the correct bins. I can’t really force them to be organized, but I can force them to keep the stuff off the floor so when I walk by I can pretend their rooms are clean!

My son is 15 so his room is lovingly referred to as the pit of despair.

He picked the paint/color scheme for his room which is painter’s tape blue, black and white. He has a loft bed, couch and tv so it actually is just like a dorm room.

Fortunately, his mess is confined to his bedroom and the rest of the house is largely unaffected.

I have a 14 year old boy and I have found that the best way to cope with his mess is to just shut the door and hope to God it doesn’t spread.

My boys are 8 & 9 and up until about 4 months ago their room was still set up for a preschooler. They had a train table that was a catch-all table and not enough storage for all of their stuff.
So slowly but surely we’ve been updating their room. We’ve added 2 bookcases and more storage. I hope this works because before their room was a disaster.

my boys are 3.5 and 7 and each has his own room. the rooms are pretty neat, but the rest of the house has so so much kid stuff that my husband and I joke that we live in the house of two kids. we are just about to add some cabinets with doors in each boys room, for storing some of the stuff, and some more bookshelves in the living room and den, to try to contain some of the kid stuff and make it more guest friendly. we shall see. we are all collectors, so there is little stuff all over the place and it’s all “important”. thank you for sharing all of your great ideas.

I have a girl and a boy. My girl is waaaay sloppier than my boy. And for a long time her toys were tinier too (until he discovered the joys of LEGO). We go through this organizing about once a month with the kids and it seems rather hopeless. The biggest thing for us is getting rid of the stuff they don’t use anymore. When there is too much stuff, they get overwhelmed and quit cleaning. I have tried multiple organization systems and none seem to work for long term. But we keep persevering.

I love how clean and tidy the rooms are.

I have a teenage girl, and it hit the point a couple of years ago where I was tired of yelling everytime I tried to clean her room. So I made her do it.

It’s not neat, by any stretch, but it’s [relatively] clean, and she’s actually come to realize that it’s NICE to have a clean room where you and your friends can hang out. [Having seen most of her friends’ rooms, I’m not alone in dealing with this. And thinking back, I distinctly remember layers of clothing and debris on my bedroom floor. Whoops.]

Their rooms look great. I am such a big fan of smaller containers to manage different categories of toys. I’m also a nerdy fan of organizational posts like this.

I have two boys who share a room and two girls who also share. OMG, the girls are the slobs!

The boys tend to gather and collect things in their rooms (Lego creations, rocks, a candy wrapper collection - wth? I know!), but it’s all fairly easy to straighten up.

The girls? They change their clothes 10 times a day, they pull everything out of the dressers. There are shoes everywhere. It’s like an explosion and it takes HOURS to clean up.

My boys are getting a room makeover this summer and I love your solution about the accent wall color. Because they want NAVY BLUE walls. But maybe I could live with one navy blue wall.

I’d love to see how you organize the Game Room. I used to be so good about keeping the little kid toys organized, but I haven’t kept up now that they are bigger. (And if I don’t find the missing Lego Indiana Jones HAT, I’m going to lose my mind! All those sets should come with multiple heads and hats.)

Also? The books are eventually going to end up in piles so tall they will fall over and kill us all. I just can’t purge great kids books. I need a library addition.

My two girls are all for girly stuffs at this stage of their life. I have only one rule for them, keep things neat and in right places and we are all good.

I have a 15-year old. He has been given the tools so that he can be organized (full sized dresser and bookshelf, desk with cubbies, closet organizer) and ignors all of them. When he’s finished with WHATEVER it lands on the floor directly where he was using it. We must occasionally excavate in order to decontaminate. Otherwise, I close the door.

I swear that my son had the same Star Wars bedding! (He’s 35 now and it was a very long time ago; but if you wash the same sheets often enough, the design becomes burned into your brain.)

my design tip: we started with a rug, and based our entire living room around that and the colors in the rug!

I think starting with a piece of art is a good place to begin. Generally I just use what I have and add color to that, but if i could, I would start with one piece and work the room around it!

Having storage solutions is critical. Toy boxes, closet organizers, even simple display shelves will help keep the clutter to a minimum. And super-quick straightening up for company is easy - instead of sweeping it under the rug, throw it in the toy box!

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