Toy Storage

Since we don't have a playroom to stash toys, I had to spread them out throughout the house and get creative with storage. Here's our living room. To the right is the couch, so basically I split the room in half and decided to use this little bit of space to spread out blocks, puzzles, or whatever toy is drug out. It's a great place for our swing or exersaucer since they take up so much room. This room is a walk through room, so it was difficult to really make this space usable. The dresser you see in this play area has actually been turned into a computer desk, so we share this space in many ways.

Since there's a door, a fireplace and a window taking up the only wall in the area, I decided that we didn't have THAT MANY fires in our fireplace to truly give up that amount of usable space. So, I closed it off with a chalkboard. We still aren't finished with the project. I plan to paint magnetic paint on it, then black chalkboard paint over it (chalk shows up better on a black chalkboard and when cleaned off and all black, it will resemble a fireplace at first glance.) We also have to paint the wood trim that's underneath it. My mom hung these flower lights over the chalkboard and when lit, it actually is pretty cute in person. Laney LOVES to have them lit up.

More than anything in my decorating, I love to take things and repurpose them. If you have minimal space for toys, go vertical.
I keep wooden puzzles on the bottom (those are so hard to store unless you pay an arm and leg for the Melissa and Doug puzzle storage thing-y), baby dolls and infant toys in the other two compartments. I didn't tidy this up before I took the pic, so this is what is looks like day in and day out. My daughter can very easily access to the bottom two compartments, which is key to smart storage of toys.

Adjacent to that area is a little reading nook. I rotate these books out, since most of her books are kept in her closet. I love this kid table and have moved it around all over the house trying to find the perfect spot for it, and I believe I have found it (for now at least). I took the other two chairs that go with the set and have them in Laney's room.

For the longest time, I couldn't figure out why the few books in this cube went untouched, for she LOVES to read. Then it dawned on me that, at my angle, I can very easily see what's in the box and I thought she could as well, but in reality she couldn't. I got down on her eye leve and sure enough, she couldn't see one book in there. So, I took the pink storage bin and turned it on it's side and flipped the books arouns so Laney could actually see and take out each book.

Now onto the sitting room/tv area. I took the bottom two shelves of this bookshelf and dedicated it to toy storage.

Here in Laney's room is where I store "her" toys. Since having our second, I realized that the majority of her toys need to be in her room, not only for saftey purposes as her toys are starting to get smaller and smaller (aka: choking hazards), but also because the infant toys are BIG and pretty much take over. I use her kitchen to store all kinds of toys in there, not just pots, pans and food.

These three baskets that sit on top of her kitchen not only match her quilt perfectly, but they only cost me $1 each brand new from the dollar store. I keep all kinds of randomness in these bins. You know, those little bitty toys that don't really have a home anywhere.


The Baby Boat: I love this thing.

My girl has so many baby dolls and just loves EACH of them. She truly plays with all of them. She used to drag them all out and scatter them throughout the house by the end of the morning hours. So, on a whim, I grabbed this basket, placed almost all of her babies in there, found the nearest ribbon in the kitchen junk drawer and called it a baby boat. It was a decision I made "off the cuff" and boy am I glad I did. She LOVES it and LOVES dragging the "boat" all over the house, yet they are all together. When she decides to unpack all the babies, there's an immediate place for them to go when I ask her to "clean up."

Her closet, where the rest of her books are stored.

Lastly, her massive closet of dress-up clothes.

I wracked my brain as to how I could hang them on the wall at her level, but that wouldn't have been safe since the hooks would have been at her eye level. So, I just stuffed them in the bottom drawer of her dresser, where she can still have access to them. And the best part is that I don't have to hang them up. I just stuff! Love it!