Playroom in basement or living room?

winery

We finished our basement and moved the bulk of the toys down there, but the only thing that really accomplishes is that I go down there every few weeks and switch out the toys that are upstairs in our family room.

We finished the basement for this precise reason, but I don't want to hang out in the basement where there's just a sliding glass door and no windows.  No TV (though we don't watch TV all day) and no kitchen.

On the main floor we have a family room (TV, couches, etc), a dining room (which has a changing pad on it, but whatever) and a living room that has a bunch of nice furniture in it that I dust once a week.  We NEVER use it.

I'm thinking of proposing to DH to make the living room the toy room and then the basement would become more of an adult space. 

Then we could put the changing pad in the toy room and clean up the dining room and maybe use it for dining.

But the big thing would be that the boys would play on the same floor as the main living space, kwim?  Oh, and the family room would be toy-less.  Yay.

So, would you prefer most of your toys in the basement and just go down there and suck it up or use a room that's on the main floor that you otherwise don't use at all?

Jamaica_Bride

I vote for the main floor. I like to be able to do thing while the boys play- dinner, laundry, sitting on my arse.

hikerbeth

I would still want the basement to be the main toy space.  I dream of the day we can finish it and get the romper room down there.  I would keep the basement as the primary play space and "hide" some toys (in storage ottomans, storage benches, etc." in the main part of the house.

sweetie1528

I say main floor.  my h can't wait to convert the basement into a play area.  I don't like basements.

BubblyToes

Our is upstairs in our bonus room.  We also have a huge closet under our stairs where a ton of toys are hidden away.

BUT, if it's a main-floor room that's not used?  I would use that.

springmom

The main playroom is the basement, but we have a small table and chairs in the family room off the kitchen with a few toys in a nice bucket/storage, and three cabinets with toys. ?That way, the kids can play up here with me, but you don't walk into Toys R Us when you walk into our house. ?It's also nice when we have company (with the kids being older) to send all the kids downstairs to play when the adults need adult time.

Bellisimo

Our playroom is upstairs.  We don't have basements where I live.  I LOVE not having all those toys on the main floor.  It takes a whole lot more effort to lug toys downstairs so they typically stay up there unless I bring them down.  I can't handle lots of toys in the main living space. 

Jamaica_Bride

...and I should add that all of our toys are in the toy room- AKA the formal living room. I love having NO TOYS in the family room )

lsufan

Well, our living room IS our toy room, which I hate, but we have no choice at the moment.  Even though I hate having all of those toys constantly in our living space, it is nice that I can be in the kitchen doing stuff and still listening to the boys play in the next room.  I think if I had a basement, I'd keep all of the bigger toys down there but have a few baskets of smaller toys to keep on the main level.  

LizLovesJason

I think I'm one of the few people who actually doesn't mind having a lot of toys in the family room. Our family room and kitchen connect and I like being able to keep an eye on the kids while I'm cooking. The coffee table and two side tables in our family room have a lot of storage space--the tops lift up, and there are sliding baskets underneath--so we can store a lot of toys away and you can't even tell they're there. Of course, I'm not always good about putting the toys away at the end of the day, but it IS possible to not have a single toy in sight.

The kids also have a lot of toys in their rooms, and as they get older they seem to prefer playing up there since their bigger toys are up there, but they still have a lot of stuff downstairs to keep them busy.

There aren't many basements where we live. When I was 8, my family moved into a house with a huge basement, and I spent a lot of time playing in it. The only drawback was that I feel like it kind of encouraged isolation. It was easy to go down there to get away from everyone. So in a way I'm kind of glad we don't have one.

In your situation I would definitely use the living room as a playroom, at least while the kids are little.

AnnapolisLari

Until your kids are a little older and don't need to be that closely supervised 100% of the time, I would use the living room. You don't use the basement most of the time anyway, from what I see. J is playing in the LR a lot, anyway!

It's not permanent, and you can always switch it back later.