Are there places inside or around your home that you haven’t ventured into in years? In week 34 of the 52-Week Decluttering Challenge, we’re tackling one of those areas. It’s time for the long-overdue task of decluttering outdoor toys in our kids’ playhouse.

Our girls are all grown up now and they haven’t set foot in their playhouse in about 10 years. During our recent staycation, my husband decided it was time to clear it out. It was a task I was a little leery of. We hadn’t opened the door in years. To be honest, I was a little worried there may be mice—or worse— taking up residence.

Are you ready for week 34? Let’s get decluttering!

This post was originally published in August 2021 and republished in September 2024.

What is the 52-Week Decluttering Challenge?

In this year-long journey, we’re tackling one task at a time with the goal of cleaning up and organizing our homes. If you’ve just joined us, no worries. You can jump right in with this week’s challenge. Just check out the first two posts in the series to download your free checklists.

• 52-Week Decluttering Challenge
• Week 1 – Easy Decluttering Checklist

You can get easy access to all previous weekly posts on the main Decluttering page.

Week 34 – Decluttering outdoor toys and kids’ playhouse

I do love this playhouse. My husband and his brother built it for our younger daughter’s second birthday. It arrived here on a rainy Saturday in May 2005 and has been a fixture in our garden ever since.

When the girls were young, they had so much fun playing in it. They played house and store, and even served play restaurant food from the side window. (The irony that my younger daughter spent three years working part-time at the McDonald’s drive-thru as a teenager isn’t lost on me here.)

As the girls got older, they no longer played in the playhouse and it became a bit of a dumping ground for outdoor toys.

If you’ve been following my decluttering adventures, you know I usually like to take before and after pictures. Well, this time I didn’t get a chance to take a before picture. One day, my husband disappeared outside. I came out a little while later to find toys strewn all over the lawn.

I wasn’t about to complain though. He’s not usually involved with my decluttering, so I didn’t want to dampen the enthusiasm.

This week’s decluttering and organizing tips

I only have a couple of tips to share for decluttering outdoor toys.

• Don’t wait for your kids to grow up to do this. Honestly, it’s something we should have done years ago. Over the years, we have cleared out most of their indoor toys, but you know what they say about “out of sight, out of mind”.
• Toys are a hot commodity on Buy Nothing groups. One afternoon, I posted a batch of about 10 photos. Within minutes, most of the items were claimed. I could barely keep up with the responses that were coming in faster than I could mark the items as pending pick up. I waited a couple of days before posting the remaining items. They were also claimed quickly.

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What I got rid of

In total, we cleared out 91 items from the playhouse. (We had obviously never heard of the 20-toy rule.) There were a few broken items that we put out on garbage day. We’ve passed the rest on to new children to love! It always makes me feel good when people pick up treasures for their kids or grandkids. One lady messaged me to tell me how much her granddaughter loved her new teeter-totter!

Here’s the list of what we got rid of…

• A bag of balls holding 9 soccer balls, beach balls, footballs
• Toy BBQ with play food and BBQ tools
• 30 assorted beach toys – buckets, spades, dump truck, wagon, etc.
• Teeter-totter
• Toy lawn mower
• 20 pieces of play gardening tools
• Sports play set with net and equipment for different sports
• 10 miscellaneous bats, balls, and racquets
• Barbie roller skates
• 3 kids lawn chairs
• Skipping rope
• Ride-on bouncy ball
• Giant soccer ball
• 3 hula hoops
• 9 other miscellaneous toys

I must admit I was a little sad to see some of this stuff go. Now, we need to decide what to do with the playhouse. I wouldn’t mind reclaiming that corner of our garden for the sitting area that was there before the playhouse arrived.

Oh, and it turned out my worries about finding critters living inside were unfounded. My husband said everything was dry and there was no sign of any animal residents. This playhouse was better built than most real houses these days.

2024 Update

It has been three years so I’m rebooting the 52-Week Decluttering Challenge to see how much I can get rid of in 2024.

I smiled when this post came up on my schedule and I re-read it. A couple of months ago, we did finally tear down the playhouse and swing set. It was sad to see it go, but it was time. I now have a nice sitting area in the back corner of our garden once again.

So that’s week 34 done.

If you have friends or family members who could benefit from a little less clutter in their lives, please share this post and spread the word!

Do you have a spot in your home that falls into the “out of sight, out of mind” category? Tell us about it below.