Side note:
Old houses have such character. This space...I'm not exactly sure what the original purpose was. It's alongside the top of our stairs, but isn't really wide enough to be entirely useful living space. My Dad remembers jumping off it onto the steps when he was a kid. And falling a lot, through the sheet rock on the stairs. Since Bryan and I wanted to avoid that memory building opportunity for our own children, we decided to turn it a game storage area with some portable, build-able shelving.
There are other spaces in the house where I just wish I could see what the original builder had in mind...
End side note!
Since we aren't doing school right now, it's the perfect time of year for more in-depth organization and cleaning. However, since I am very pregnant, I'm trying to make sure I don't over do it. I've been picking one or two projects a day to work on, and then make sure and spend time with my feet up relaxing and resting with the family. The games were the goal for the day!
Ellie and Sydney were visiting with my Mom and helping her undecorate her Christmas tree. The rest of us jumped to work. Jayme was assigned keeping track of Owen and Simon so they couldn't track pieces all over the house.
Jeffrey helped to pull everything off the shelves.
I had forgotten how many games we had. Jeffrey and I stacked everything up in the girls' room or in the hallway area outside.
We started by putting all loose pieces in a tub. That way when we found a game with a missing piece, we'd have one spot to look. We went through the games and made sure there were enough pieces that it was still playable (some are still missing a piece or two, but nothing that affects game play greatly). Game boxes that were broken had their contents dumped into Ziploc bags to avoid losing more. Games that were unplayable due to missing pieces were either kept in one pile to be used for play by our younger kids (who just want to play with the pieces and don't really care if they play "correctly") or thrown away, depending on their state.
As part of the process, we straightened up the money and cards in games. Rubber bands and small baggies were big helpers for this task! Now when we decide to play a game, we can jump right into play instead of having to organize everything first and then play. I'm excited about that part!
We put puzzles in bags, and now just have a small pile of pieces leftover that I'm not sure where they go. That's Jayme's project over the next few days--put together puzzles and toss the ones missing pieces and add the correct pieces to the right puzzles. We also have a few cards left to be organized. We have three sets of Skip Bo, but I know that the sets as they are aren't complete right now. So cards and puzzles need a bit of work, but everything else got finished up.
It looks so much nicer, and all of our new games have a home. The card games (Monopoly Deal, Skip Bo, Life Adventures, and so many more) are now stored in plastic bags in the baskets. No more digging for them. The white basket in the corner is for any pieces we find as we clean out other rooms in the house. I'm sure they're there somewhere...
Another plus? Since we've really been decluttering lately, it felt good to fill another bag.
And now our games are ready to play. I'm feeling a game night coming on!
Do you have any tricks for keeping them organized?
