Tomorrow, the kids are home from school-Presidents day, and I plan to have the BIG BEDROOM PURGE. I would appreciate any tips you all might have about getting kids rooms cleaned and organized-they are eight and eleven.

One thing I plan to do is have several boxes-one for keepsake that will be packed away for a while, one for give aways, one for throw aways, etc.We have birthdays coming up, so I'm using that as a motivater-I'm also going to try to get new curtains,-My son will turn eleven and is starting to complain a bit about his Snoopy curtains.... and possibly some new bed spreads-I don't have time or money for complete re-do, but I would like to spruce up a bit. Any tips or cheap and easy decorating tips would be greatly appreciated.

-- Kelly (KY) (homearts2002@yahoo.com), February 17, 2002

Answers

I have been trying a 15 minutes a day technique on my kids room so it doesn't get overwhelming when they have to clean it. That means that every sat they clean their rooms but it isn't so bad because I spend 15 minutes every day putting the things I find out of place in a basket for them to put away.

More importantly, I throw away stuff that really needs to be thrown away (last year's vacation bible camp clay, for example) and get rid of the ratty clothes they continue to wear to places they shouldn't.

This makes it much easier for them to clean because there is room for their stuff.

Having alot of storage boxes for small stuff helps. All jewelry goes in a jewelry box. All stuffed toys in another box. Shoes in a box in closet. Dirty clothes in a basket on top of she box. Small toys in a box under bed.

I keep a box high on a bookshelf for "pieces without partners" where game and puzzles pieces go. Every few months we find and put back these pieces.

I wash and fold their clothes and they put them away. By high school they are doing all of this themselves (when they have a budget for their clothes and will care if they ruin something in the wash).

My goal is to do some organizing with each child--say a drawer at a time.

-- Ann Markson (TN) (tngreenacres@hotmail.com), February 17, 2002.

Curtains do not have to be "curtains"..when my kids were small, I used to look for sales on mismatched twin sheets...buy a single twin sheet, cut in half, hem the cut ends,use two wooden dowels for rods (about 25cents/each), and then buy about 8 of those rings where when you squeeze them, they open up to clasp the fabric.....ta dah..new curtains...you can do the same with towels in the bathroom or kitchen.....one of my shower curtains right now is really a table cloth..hee hee hee....as far as keeping a childs' room neat,storage is the key and you already have those ideas going! God bless.

-- lesley (martchas@bellsouth.net), February 17, 2002.

One thing that we have always found to spruce up a room inexpensively is paint. For about $10 to $15 at Wal-Mart you can get a gallon with just a light tint of whatever color you prefer - but be sure to get it about one shade lighter than you think you want, because when it gets on the walls, WHOA! I've made that mistake before - my den was not "light green", but "LOOK AT ME GREEN!" once for about a year in our old house. My sister redid my nephew's room when he was about eleven, and for decoration they bought a little paint in the colors of his favorite college team, and sponges in the shape of the college's initials, and sponged them onto one wall in the school colors, alternating -some groups all one color, some part one and part the other. Turned out great, and he still likes it three years later!

Sheets do make wonderful curtains, and the nice thing about them is that you can change them out when you are tired of them, use the old ones for rags, and not feel guilty about it! You can also buy white sheets for curtains, then fabric paint a decoration or lettering (like the college team) on them, and save so much over buying the same thing!

-- Christine in OK (cljford@mmcable.com), February 17, 2002.

I also love sheets. You can often get them for a few dollars, and there is no limit to the fabrics. My kids are all into HORSES so we use a lot of posters from horse magazines, and I bought them each 2 yards of horse fabric for pillows and decoration in their rooms.

-- Melissa in SE Ohio (me@home.net), February 18, 2002.