Tip to all parents about clean up: you can't just tell your younger child to clean up a room. It is too overwhelming for them and it would be as if someone dropped you off in the middle of a place ravaged by a tornado and told you to clean it up. It is very overwhelming. But, if you start off specific like "Johnny, let's pick up the blocks. Ok, now let's pick up the crayons" it breaks it down for them and makes cleaning up easier for them to handle.

Expedit and baskets. Now called Kallax? (Have no idea why)...

HOWEVER, I have to say that really the only way to keep things clean is to

* have fewer things (the most important)
* have a super simple organization system
* make them clean up after every play session (their little brains cannot fathom cleaning up a chaotic mess)
* help them clean up

Which brings me again to just having fewer things.

My toddler gets into everything and I would be so afraid she would topple stuff. She is rail thin but I I am surprised at her strength sometimes. So everything is in large open cubes from ikea.

We don't have space for a play room in our Capitol Hill condo. We have one child, age 15 months. We have two of the Land of Nod Storage-Palooza toy boxes (which are awesome), stacked on top of one another, and a PBK activity table with the roll out drawers. They take up a corner of our living/dining room. We also have a Land of Nod play kitchen in the actual kitchen (part of our open floor plan). Books go on an outward facing book rack in DS's room. Stuffed animals go in one of those hanging nets from Ikea. All of our storage furniture and the play kitchen came from Craigslist. We only keep toys that fit in the allotted space. Everything else goes in storage for baby #2 and/or hand-me-downs. It works for us because 1) DS spends most of his time at daycare, playing in our yard, or at the park, and 2) without a dedicated play room, less toys = less clean up.

http://store.closetmaid.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/ProductDisplay?catalogId=10051&storeId=10151&top_category=10002&parent_category_rn=10054&categoryId=10087&productId=10453

Closet Maid 9 cube plus 6 of the bins that go in them. No playroom, this is in my living room (dark brown).

We have an ikea "billy" bookcase - we have solid doors on the bottom half that have child cabinet locks on them. We use it to store games with lots of pieces that can get lost, messy art supplies, etc.

I have these from Walmart (Better Homes and Gardens Brand), which look a lot like the Ikea Expedit shelves, but a bit less money. I've never seen the Ikea shelves in person, but look similar to me. This 3-cube shelf is great.

http://www.walmart.com/ip/4-Cube-Organizer-Espresso/29741113