Inside: A Self Cleaning Kids’ Room: Is It Possible? Collaborative post.
A self cleaning kids’ room sounds like a dream. How could you get your child to clean up behind them consistently, keeping their room looking mostly neat and tidy? It’s all about how easy you make a chore like this!
Certain design tips go miles to helping your child put things in the right place, and make a mess without being overwhelmed by needing to clean it up. As a result, a self cleaning kids’ room becomes totally possible. Of course, a bit of mess is natural, but you won’t be walking into a wasteland of toys and paper anymore!
Glue a Magnet onto Containers and Hang Them
If you want your child to have places to put things away that aren’t too complicated (if it’s a big box they’re throwing things into, they’ll never be able to find anything again!) use magnets and pencil pots. Glue the magnets onto a side, get a magnetised board or even a peg board that you can easily hang up in their room, and then stick all the containers on it.
You can then label each pot with the certain item that goes in it. Pencils, pens, crayons, plastic army men, wooden animals, etc., and your child will be easily able to take out and put back the exact things they want.
Kids often don’t tidy their own stuff away because it’s overwhelming. If you make it simple and plain to see, your child’s room will soon become a self cleaning paradise.
Place Shelves Low
Low fitted wood shelving is good for kids’ rooms, simply because it’s a cheap material, it’s sturdy, and it keeps things off the floor. And if you’re constantly tripping over or standing on sharp Lego pieces when you walk into the room, some shelving will be pure pain relief!
Fit it low so your child can use it as a surface for setting up dioramas, towns, and any kind of scene they want their toys to get involved with. At the end of the day, they don’t even need to put anything away, as it’s all neatly in place on one of the shelves.
Use Baskets Near the Bed
If there’s a big basket near the bed, either made out of crocheted material or a wicker version, you can put everything they like to use at bedtime in easy reach. Indeed, this is a good alternative to a bedside table, which might be a little big for their room. Now they just have to look in the basket!
Put White or Black Board Material on the Wall
If your child has a habit of getting things on the wall (crayon, food, mud and dirt that seems to have come from nowhere), put up either a white or black board so they can make a mess without really making a mess.
Hang Up an Art Washing Line
Kids love to draw pictures and colour in pages you’ve printed off. If they then leave these items on the floor, or all over the desk in their room, hang up a washing line and put a load of pegs in a drawer.
Show Your Child How to Use Everything
Now that you’ve got it all set up and ready to go, show your child how to use each object in turn. The more they’re instructed, the less they have to figure things out themselves, and the less you’ll be left with it all being dumped on the floor again.
Show them how to play on the lower shelves, and how to hang up their art so it doesn’t get ruined. Then tell them they can draw and write on the white/black board as much as they like, as long as they don’t get pen or crayon anywhere else on the wall.
And when they climb into bed at the end of the day, show them their stuffed toys and favourite books in the basket beside the bed. They just need to reach in to grab what they want!
What to Remember
You could very well design a self cleaning kids’ room when you use ideas like these! The easier it is to just throw things in a basket, or set up toys on an easily accessible surface that isn’t the floor, the tidier the entire space will be.
So why not incorporate some of these ideas into your child’s room? They’ll help to encourage life skills from a young age without removing any of the fun!