Delilah’s Room
This past week I took on the project of rearranging Delilah’s bedroom. I started to notice clutter piling up, like bags of her outgrown clothes. Plus, I knew that I was really going to be in trouble organizing her room after Christmas. Her gifts are currently taking over my desk, and I’m wondering how they’ll fit in her room with the current layout. And that’s not even considering gifts from other family members.
It was a surprisingly strange feeling to go about rearranging her room. While I was pregnant I LOVED getting her room ready. I probably moved all the furniture and folded the clothes in her dresser 3 or 4 times before I felt like I had it right. Her room was like my happy place after it was set up. Everything was cute and had a matching design. It was how I wished my whole house was put together. However, almost 9 months later her room has is over run.
The first challenge to tackle in Delilah’s room was her clothes. Her clothes were everywhere. Her closet and dresser were overflowing and boxes of clothes she had outgrown were piling up around the walls. To be honest, I bought her way more clothes than needed. In an effort to be a little frugal I also bought huge lots of second-hand clothes in sizes 0-18 months. So, she was stocked up on clothes, but I had to figure out where to store them all. At first, I had them sorted by size and stored in diaper boxes in her closet, but after she went through a few sizes that system got out of hand. There were boxes of clothes that were too big for her on one side, the size she was currently wearing hanging up, and boxes with sizes she had outgrown on the other side. After she outgrew a size I separated the clothes into boxes to keep or to sell. I sold a couple boxes already but I was still drowning in baby clothes.
I decided to start with the clothes I wanted to keep and decided to limit myself to one large plastic storage tubs for 0-6 months sizes. If we have another baby girl, I’d still go shopping for the new baby anyway, so I tried really hard just to pick my favorites of Delilah’s outgrown clothes. I may have needed to sit on the lid and tape it down but I got them all to fit! Then, I worked on the clothes I wanted to sell. I ended up dividing them into three big lots and they are boxed and stacked neatly, ready to sell.
The next part of rearranging her room was hard. I had to disassemble and put away all of her little baby things that she really wasn’t using anymore, like her bouncer chair and tummy time center. So, I packed those up to be put in the garage with her clothes and co-sleeper. Once all that stuff was out of the way I could look around her room and figure out what she needed. The three biggest things I noticed was that she needed a play area in her room, better toy storage, and more storage for books.
I decided to use her rug as a space for the play area, but I came to find that more of her baby furniture had to go. No matter how I tried to rearrange the room, the changing table and her rocking chair just didn’t fit. The changing table was an easy choice because I hardly used it any more except for storing diapers. The rocker was a harder decision. I didn’t use it much when Delilah was little but recently the rocker is the only way I can get her to sleep some nights. Luckily, I was able to move some things around in my room and move it in there. While it’s not ideal I’m happy I was able to keep her rocker at least a little bit longer. With the baby furniture moved out, I set it up so there was a place to keep her toys and a soft spot to play instead of directly on the hardwood floors.
The next challenge was storage for her toys and books. Up until now I kept her toys in a large basket that was a part of a baby shower gift, but it was definitely not a long-term solution by any means. I shared my concerns about toy and book storage with my mom and she decided to get Delilah a new toy box for Christmas. I swear she’s on a mission to spoil my child because she got her the coolest toy storage system. It’s soft plastic with rounded edges because now that Delilah’s starting to pull herself up to standing I’m in constant paranoia that she’s going to hit her head on everything. It also has shelves for books and bigger toys and neat little bins for smaller toys. It’s an organizers dream!
We had planned to keep it for Christmas, but we thought Delilah would be more excited to see the actual toy box rather than a plain cardboard box with a bow. So, we decided to assemble it, but when we did it wouldn’t fit by the tree so she got one present a little early!
It’s been pretty emotional going through Delilah’s room. It made me really notice how big she’s getting and that my little baby will be a toddler before I know it. It also made me realize that at first her room was more for me because it had everything that I needed to take care of her. Now she’s getting bigger and just a little more independent so her room needs to change to fit what she needs. To me, her room feels a little empty without all the little baby things, but with the new play area set up it really feels like Delilah’s room.