HELP - Please help me organise/declutter DSs room!

[citronella]

I am getting desperate.
My two DSs (10 and 6) share a room. It was fine when they were smaller but as they have grown they have accumulated loads of stuff.
DS1 in particular is mad about and has loads (I mean loads) of Lego.
DS2 has lots of big vehicles.
The house is small and toys have started to permeate everywhere. We have had big clear ups before and it's great for a week or two but then it goes back to usual. At the moment you can barely see the floor let alone walk in it or get in to clean!
So far I have tried:

• A basket in the living room to put in anything that ends up down there, but there is still a load of stuff lying about.
• Sets of small plastic drawers each for sorting and keeping bits and bobs

-Increasing number of containers for Lego -Also, I have been withholding pocket money until the room is tidy BUT THERE IS JUST SO MUCH STUFF and to be fair they are out growing the room but I can't afford to move to a bigger place or buy more storage (not that there is room for more storage.

So my question to you is how do I sort their stuff into a longlasting semblance of organisation so that I can at least clean? What should I throw away, put in the loft etc??

Thanks

Have you tried rotating the toys? I found that ds was not playing with a lot of his stuff so I took some away (stuck it in the garage) and then brought it out again a couple of months later. Not only was it like having new toys but as about a third of his toys were out of action the mess was reduced. You wouldn't need to buy storage, bag a couple of sets up and stick in attic, see if world ends (according to your sons) then rotate in a couple of months.

You just have to be very ruthless, tell your sons in advance that if there toys are not kept tidy you will give them to the charity shop or put them in the loft (depending on how strict you feel) - and then follow this up. I just never allowed my DS to have many toys, perhaps I am super strict but it seemed to work. It is a really good idea to 'rotate' toys or give them away.

I will give rotating toys a go. Ds1 'plays' Lego all the time so is constantly building, deconstructing and reconstring. DS2 tends to play with cars, so I will see what i can get rid of. The age difference means that it's slower getting rid of things without DS2 getting overlooked.

I have found I have to be ruthless. My children have lots of toys, but the majority of these are things that only get played with very occassionally. So recently I have had a major sort out. Toy's which never or incredibly rarely get played with either got sold or taken to the charity shop. Things that they play with fairly regularly but not all the time got divided, some in the loft, some left in their rooms to be played with (but to be rotated with loft toys), and some went to Granny where they now get played with everytime we go round there.

The only toys left in there rooms are the ones they play with daily, so lego, duplo, trains, littlest pet shop etc. All are stored in their own boxs so we only have one or 2 boxes out at a time.

I also edited some of their toys e.g we had so much train track and trains they couldn't use all of it, so I sold half the track and a box of the trains they didn't play with and with the money ds1 picked some of the newer Thomas trains that he wanted.

I really did have to be brutal and not sentimental. I can no longer keep the toys they had when they were 6 months old just beacuse they remind me of them being little. Also in our case a lot of toys came from the car boot and charity shops so haven't cost us much money. So I figure if they ever decide they really want a particular toy again we can find one up the car boot.

I use lots of trofast boxes from ikea for the lego and argos storage boxes under the bed for everything else. In DS1's room we have ikea ivar shelves along one wall which is great for storing the trofast boxes on.