I visited a friend of mine this week. She has a home just a little bigger then ours and manages to make it work with 6 children (soon to be 7). I was interested in seeing how she organizes her home. Between this visit and continued reading in Large Family Logistics I am getting all sorts of ideas for our home and things are going so well.

The key is areas and places designated for everything. “A place for everything and everything in its place.” So now as I type in my little corner of the living/dining room this is what my area looks like.

No more piles of papers on the printer or around the desk. So much nicer. Here are a couple tips from this week’s work.

* Shelves are wonderful. They are a great and easy way to utilize wall space. It has done wonders for our computer area, entryway and children’s bedroom.

* Sorting toys by type of play. Example, I gathered all those fun and silly clothes and put them in a bin under the children’s bunk beds. Now it’s a dress up box.

* If an area isn’t working the way it was intended change it. Our playroom is in the basement, but in actuality it had become a dumping ground for toys. Today the task is to box those up and use the mats as kind of big kids playground. Proeun studies martial arts in his “free time” and this weekend lessons will begin for the older children and cousins.

* Sometimes you just have to bite the bullet and get rid of things. That leather jacket I never wear, those high heels that just don’t work for chasing children, that shirt that forever wrinkles, and those clothes I am waiting to fit into again. This weekend I am taking 2 big garage bags full of clothes to the Alley shop, a local church runs a thrift store out of their alley that provides professional clothes for low income women and more.

More next week.