The saving grace of childrens’ clutter is a toy room. My Shanghai apartment is bigger than our home in California. The girls share a room and have since Elle was born. Our Hong Kong apartment was half the size of this place. I love having a toy room. The bedrooms are for books and sleeping which feel peaceful with out all the clutter of toys. But, the real reason I love the toy room is that I can close the door and pretend the room does not exist. We recently expanded the toy room to include the wii. It gives the children somewhere to play when we have guest.

Eleri has been playing with the big soft blocks Mary Major gave us when they moved back to America. She would be thrilled to know how often Elle gets them out…and leaves them out!!

Elle has her kitchen corner where she loves to play restaurant or cooking a meal.

And, then there is Eleri’s craft corner. I really pretend it doesn’t exist. I throw her various projects in the basket and leave. Notice, we hide it behind the bookshelf – not that it helps!