Organized?
Recently a friend messaged me on Facebook and asked me for some advice on organizing kid's toys. What types of baskets did I use, etc. I started messaging her back and realized how LONG my message was getting, and then I just thought...other's might like to see this, and this is way too long for a FB message! Once again, I'm happy to share what works for MY family...and MY house. This obviously won't work for every family, and my system isn't perfect. There are things about our organization that I wish were different, but I haven't found that perfect solution yet. When I do, I'll let you know!!
Let me start by saying that we're fortunate in that we have a designated "playroom". When we decided to have the Puppy, we knew we wanted to turn our FROG (Free Room Over Garage) into his bedroom and that meant giving up our playroom. My husband convinced me to redo a room in our basement that was being used as an exercise/storage room. I can't find any of the before pics, but it really was bare bones...unfinished, concrete floor, no carpeting, no real closet, mud sink, etc. So, inspired by things I found on Pinterest, we created a beach-themed playroom for the boys. We re-did this room in August of 2011, and the boys had been to the beach for the first time the July before, so it seemed appropriate as they were obsessed at the time. I first made a list of things I had to have. I wanted storage for books, baskets for little toys, shelves in a closet for board games and puzzles, a place to do "homework", a place to watch TV and movies, and soft carpet that they could be warm and comfortable on and feel comfortable falling asleep on to a movie on a wintery day. Obviously I wanted blue walls and "sand" colored carpet.
We chose to go with IKEA for the furniture in this room. Originally we were going to have custom built-in storage throughout this room, but when we learned of the cost, we chose to just go with IKEA furniture because we aren't 100% positive that this will always be a playroom. Keep in mind that this is a basement room, it's kind of a throughway from the stairs to the "back room" which houses our furnace, oil tanks, storage shelves, a second refrigerator, and now a bathroom and exercise equipment. The white door leads to that back room and has a lock on it that you need to have a key to open because the 2nd fridge holds our adult beverages!! I originally wanted to put a small window treatment on that window, but it's the ONLY natural light this room gets, so I wanted to let as much in as possible. I may address it one day, maybe not.
I love this 4 X 4 Expedit shelf from IKEA (you'll see I have two later). We chose NOT to get any baskets for this shelf. I wanted this for books (we have a ridiculous amount of books in our house) and for things that I wanted the kids to be able to SEE, or that wouldn't fit in a basket. Here's a close up of the shelf.
This holds mostly books, but also a basket of train tracks, a basket of markers, a basket of little people and a few games and toys. On top, we put The Big Dog's ship from when he was little and some puzzles on the top where the kids can't get them unless we get them down.
Right beside that shelf, we have a small desk, again from IKEA. I love the pop of orange on the drawer. It's hard to see, but there's a starfish lamp on the desk. The boys sometimes sit here and color or write, but not a lot right now. Our hope is that they'll use it more for doing work in the future. Again, the untreated window and a jellyfish that Snip made at school.
This closet didn't have a door or shelves before. Now, it has a folding door and three shelves which hold board games, play sets, and other toys. The plastic container on the floor holds Thomas trains and Little People, each in their own drawer.
To the right of the closet was a difficult space because this is where the mud sink used to be. So the light on the ceiling is in an awkward place as well as the switch. Anyway, another IKEA shelf on the floor, but turned on it's side. We DID get baskets for this one (again, IKEA) because we thought this would be easier for the kids to get into. I still, at some point, would like to get a cushion made for this, but just haven't done it yet.
In these baskets, from left to right, there are 1) small cars like Matchbox, Hot wheels, and CARS, 2)misc. toys...random things that have no home, 3) larger cars like the little Chuck trucks 4) even larger cars like Tonka and John Deere tractors, and 5) there are 4 or 5 even bigger cars/trucks in this basket. A Thomas the Train mat is on the floor here, as well.
The boys' train table that we made for Snip when he was almost 2, a Little People race track, and the TV area. We have The Big Dog's old Play Station here to play DVD's (and sometimes he plays a game when he gets one second).
We only bought two baskets for this IKEA shelf. On the left there are "character" toys and on the right are the Duplo building blocks. In the basket are the cars that go with the Little People Race Track. Snip had a bunch of them out playing with them, the basket is usually full.
Now, the good thing about having a designated playroom is that it can get messy and I don't care. When I say messy, I mean that there are often toys laying around. We usually make the boys clean it up every time they mess it up, but they just put things wherever. I probably do an "organizational clean-up" once a month. I think this is important to do because my boys will just put things wherever and then forget about them and they don't get played with. If we organize together about once a month, they play with things they haven't played with in a month! Another good thing about a designated playroom, is that we try to stress to the boys that these toys stay there. They do end up making their way upstairs much of the time, though, which leads me to the living room.
See, I told you I love that Expedit shelf!!! When we brought the Puppy home from the hospital, we spent a LOT of our time in the living room. Well, we've always spent a lot of time in our living room, but even more so when he was born. Snip and Snail have toy boxes in the living room that their grandparents got them, and they're great! But they were exploding and throwing up toys onto the floor and the toys were making their way across the room...I couldn't take it! I never wanted to have a toy shelf in our living room. After all, that's what we made the playroom for, right? Well, the kids didn't want to be in the playroom when their new baby brother was in the living room. So, I guess I sucked it up and we got this shelf. Only this time, we got drawers to go in the bottom 4 spaces, and baskets to all but two spaces. We have some larger books that the kids like to look at a lot and I wanted space for that. I LOVE the drawers. They cost a little more, but they're great!
In the first two from the left, we keep puzzles. In the last two, we keep some games that they love to play (Memory, 2 kinds) and a box of 4 puzzles.
Left to right: Coloring books and one box of 24 crayons, two more games they love to play, their seashell collection from the beach, and the Leap Pad with it's plug and headphones.
The first row of baskets is by far the place that gets the most use. We put their favorite, most-used toys in the baskets that are at their level, easiest to get to. Left to right: 1) balls and gloves, 2) Superheroes and their accessories, 3) Toy Story toys and Toy Story Train Accessories, 4) small cars.
The next shelf up, left to right: 1) train and track, 2) electric cars and track, 3) dress-up imaginative play stuff like capes, binoculars, walkie-talkies, hats, etc., 4) play drill set, play doctor set.
I didn't take pics of the last shelf because you wouldn't be able to see in, but the top left basket is hot wheels tracks, and the top right basket is play tools. On top of this unit we have their cast iron race cars because while they love to get them down and look at them, these aren't really toys. The John Deere tin is full of wooden blocks.
Snip's toy box hold all of the big trucks and cars and tractors.
Snail's toy box holds soft toys and bags as well as a couple of play sets.
We kind of have decided that the boys don't have toys in their rooms. They each have a shelf of books, but they really don't spend a whole lot of time in their rooms. They play in the living room or the playroom when we're inside. One last picture I want to add is the craft area of our office.
This is a really bad picture, but if not for this, we'd have a lot more mess! This little cart hold our crayons, scissors, glue, paper, ribbon, pom-poms, glitter glue, markers, paint, etc. Everything we use to craft is in this closet, in or on this cart. I keep coloring books in the living room along with one box of crayons, but if we do a craft (and we do some kind of craft almost every single day), we get the cart and bring it to the kitchen, or we do it in the office. Now, ideally, I would love to have this cart in the playroom, but right now there's no room for a table in the playroom. And I do lots of things with crafting supplies in the office, so for us, right now, this is the best solution for us.
Well, I hope this tour of toy organization has helped if you needed it! Bags with zippers are great, as well. I keep all of Puppy's toys in a little plastic zipper container. Easy to get out and easy to clean up. The boys are great about cleaning up now because they know everything has a home. One thing I would change if I could, is that I would have gotten the more expensive PLASTIC baskets. The ones I got look great in our living room, but they're not really kid friendly. They fray and you could get a splinter from them, though no one here has yet, I'm just waiting for it to happen.
Hopefully you found something useful today! Bye for now!
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