Parenting
fancynewbeesly
member
PIP toddler bedroom/play area....
fancynewbeesly
member
in Parenting
Toys and just STUFF are over taking our house. My daughter has way too many toys--especially since we still have ones from the birthday.
Unfortunately she really does play with the younger toys still (stacking rings, links, etc daily--so I can't pack those away) At the same time she is moving to the older toys as well--weebles, little people etc. Our house is seriously toy soup some days.
I would love to see your ideas on how you made it manageable. (Especially because we didn't open all of her birthday gifts yet--so I can't imagine adding those to the mix.)
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Re: PIP toddler bedroom/play area....
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My goal is to make just one room manageable - the living room. I put a short, 2 shelf bookshelf in. The top shelf has a selection of her books and the bottom shelf has a long basket. I throw random toys in the basket (it is filled to the brim). She has a chair on which I put 2 or 3 stuffed animals, and a bouncing turtle and rocking giraffe. This all goes along one wall.
All of the rest of the toys go in her bedroom. On her table, shelf, baskets. I was SO happy to discover that she rarely takes the living room toys to her bedroom or vice versa.
Now that I read this it sounds like it's cluttered, but honestly it looks okay. It's really easy just to stack stuff back on the bookshelf at night so the living room can be a relaxing place for the adults as well!
I really don't do toys in the "shared" spaces. He has a table and chairs in the dining room for himself and in my kitchen he has an easel. The rest of his stuff? Stays in his room. When Tiny is out of a crib they will share a room and we will move ALL the toys to the "playroom"
That will be nice.
We live in a condo, so we always ask that people not get us too many big things. So, I know we have less than most people do (at least in terms of volume).
In his room, he has a bookshelf that mostly has books but a couple of the shelves also have smaller toys. He also has toys in his closet that he has pretty much outgrown, but occasionally he will ask for them, so I will get them out then.
In our dining room, we have a canvas bin with a bunch of random toys in it.
In our LR, we have 2 small storage ottomans ($25 from Target). One has all his puzzles in it (he has quite a few) and the other has 2 bigger trucks and then a bunch of small cars. This isn't the best pic, but it's the one I have online. Next to the ottoman on the right is a canvas bin that has more toys in it.
We keep a toy box in the living room for the kids toys, it has to be able to shut (my rule). DD has a bin storage thing in her closet and her toys go in there...DS has two of the bin storage things in his closet (he is 2 years older and his more toys).
Her kitchen is in her room and so is her doll house. We have a basket for books in the living room and they both have baskets in their room. I also keep a big bin on the top of their closets of books that we rotate out.
It is never cluttered and they can have access to whatever they want, but they know it goes back in the spot when they are done playing with it.
We do not have a playroom, we have an office instead-so no toys in there.
No PIP but we turned our formal dining room into B's playroom. It has his train table, big trucks, table and chairs, toybox and 3 big canvas bins of toys in there. It is pretty containedand gives lots of good opportunities for practicing "clean up". Plus I can keep an eye on him when he plays
Secret to containment of all the toys is toy boxes, bins and more bins. Target has small, medium and big canvas bins and a bin shelving system that are all great for storing toys
This is what our living room looks like: https://www.thekavanaughreport.blogspot.com/2012/05/tiny-baby-things.html
...I'm not sure you want to take advice from me.
But, FWIW, I do love that shelf thing.
Thats the shelving we have! Worth every penny!
We use this Ikea Expedit shelf:
https://www.ikea.com/us/en/catalog/products/70193745/
along with the black baskets from Ikea. We have it vertical, like that, and baskets in the bottom four, then the next row up is just his toys displayed (left side is puzzles, right side is other M&D toys that don't go well in the baskets). The top two squares are my stuff, since he can't reach, and then two more baskets on top of my stuff. We anchored it to the wall.
You can also use it horizontally, like this:
with or without the casters. And they have tons of configurations - 4 squares, a long row of 4, 16 squares, etc.
It has made SUCH a huge difference. Of course when he's playing, he'll scatter stuff everywhere, but it's so much nicer to have a place for everything. And he loves pulling things out of the baskets - and putting them away.
We turned our formal living room into a playroom. We have the Expedit shelving from Ikea and a bunch of different sized baskets from the Target $1 section. We do not sort the toys appropriately but instead just throw whatever toy in whichever bin is closest. I used to be organized but DD just dumps everything out anyway. I do put the puzzle pieces in the right puzzles though.
I ordered bookshelves from Etsy that show the cover of each book instead of just the binding. Those are hung up in the playroom. Like the bins of toys, DD will empty the bookshelves almost as fast as I put them in there.
Basically, if the floors are clear and you can see the carpet, I consider my clean up effort a success!
Link?
E has two playrooms. the formal living room and dining room are his play areas.
We recently bought our home, and hadn't completely furnished it. So we just opted to keep those two play rooms for now.
https://pinterest.com/jenna3016/ideas-for-e-s-playroom/
That's my idea board. We do have the four sided library shelf for his books.
We have 2 cubicle book shelves, and one of the toy bins linked in a prior post.
https://www.target.com/p/circo-storage-organizer-natural/-/A-10693725
We also have most of his stuffed animals in a cloth toy box from Target.
https://www.target.com/p/circo-small-storage-bench-blue/-/A-12719983
I'd love to have an Expedit, but there are no Ikeas anywhere close.