The living room, or den, of a home tends to be the center of family life. It's no surprise as this often ends up the room where everyone goes to relax and enjoy each other's company. Since there is so much time spend there, a lot of things tend to accumulate in this room as well. Kids bring in their toys, the adults have work that they bring into the room, and it starts to add up and create clutter.

The first thing to do is make a decision on what you would like to keep in the room permanently. Most often the entertainment center is located in the family room, and you'll need to decide how to store your family's movie and music and keep it organized. You can find plenty of multi-purpose entertainment centers that will hold all of your electronic equipment and also have a place for your movies, CDs and whatever else you need to keep close to the TV. If you won't be changing your room around at all, a large unit is a good choice, but if you are the kind of person who likes to move furniture around a lot then you may want to consider smaller, easily moved furniture.

If you need to store your movies and CDs outside of the entertainment center, then you have plenty of opinions for storage racks. There are wood racks or even shelves and bookcases and also you'll find many metal storage units. You can find storage racks that stand up separately, and those you can attach above or near the television on the wall. If you've got a closet in the room it is also a great place for storage because it keeps the kids from using them to stack up and move around, as they always tend to do.

Let your children have some of their favorite toys in the living room. One idea is to get a clear container and allow each child their own container in a favorite color or their name on it. Whatever they can fit in the container is all they are allowed to have in the room. If the toy doesn't fit in the box, then it needs to stay out of the living room and be kept in another room like the playroom or the child's room. Toys can always be rotated to keep it fun; they'll just need to take some toys out in order to fit the new ones they want to play with in that room. You will also need to set a rule that when they are finished playing with their toys, or at least at the end of that day, they need to put everything back into the container to clean up.

Finally, create a home for the newspapers and magazines that will invariably accumulate on the tables and on the floor. A simple rack against the wall will make a nice home for these print items and this can be cleaned out on a monthly basis.

The living room is for living in so you don’t want to create a sterile environment but you don’t want things to go wild either.

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