Storage
"There are two ways to organize shoes — either by type or by owner. Choose which way seems more logical to you and stick to it, assigning a space for every pair of seasonally appropriate shoes. (The rest will be stored out of sight elsewhere in the house if you followed step one.)"
Another good story with (mainly realistic) ideas about how to master toys instead of letting them master you.
I like the tips here. Sorting toys by how they're used makes a lot of sense: flat blocks and matchbox cars together, train tracks and scenery together, etc. Creating zones and getting the kids involved in picking the zones is a wonderful way to ease up clean-up and build buy-in. Putting less-used things at the top of whatever storage piece you use makes a natural way to assess phasing out of toys. Get hooks. Keeping the play space in sight worked well for a while in Brooklyn until there were more kids and more interests and more things going on, but it's still worth considering *which* activities are worth keeping in common space. Anyway, really good piece.
I like the idea of Lucite shelves for toy storage because they are invisible, but we'd then have to make sure we did a good job with the arrangement of things in them. Additional ideas: - mobile storage, like old fashioned laundry hampers with wheels, or the Radio Flyer wagon (bad for my kids because they'd just want it as a wagon) - galvanized buckets! - get small stuff off the floor so big stuff can live in the flexible bins on the floor that it's (evidently) so hard to think of alternatives for.
Don't forget that a key part of storing things is what you choose not to store. Good and motivating article with moving and instructive comments.
Q