Ever since my kids were tots, we’ve kept their wooden toy boxes in our living room. The living room, which is only furnished with an upright piano, was the perfect place for them to play in. The plush carpeting was nice for them to play on and cushioned their falls, and the room’s location just off the kitchen made it easy for me to keep an eye on them while I was cooking.
But now that my kids are both 9, I am hoping to move the toy chests downstairs into a basement playroom. I would love to turn the living room into more of an adult living space, and furnish it with a small loveseat and a coffee table to create a quiet space for reading or lounging. And since the room is the first thing that guests see when entering our home, it would be nice if the room was a beautiful space instead of one crowded with wooden toy chests and kids toys.
Controlling the Clutter
The toy boxes have long been an eyesore in our living room, because they never seemed to contain all of my children’s toys. So, when folks would enter our house, the first thing they used to see was a jumble of toys on each toy chest. Embarrassing! The photo below shows what our toy chests usually looked like.
The toy boxes in our our living room were usually covered with a pile of toys.
Even worse is that my daughters would actually “lose” things in their toy chest, since small items would get lost in the pile of toys and get hidden on the bottom underneath a pile of stuff. (I’ve since decided that toy chests are only good for storing large items – like stuffed animals – unless you plan to organize tinyitems in smaller containers in the cbest.)
I hosted a small get-together at my home last Friday. So, to prepare for the event, I decided to empty out my kids’wooden toy boxes once and for all. That way, our living room space would look neater for our guests, and the toy boxes would be ready for their eventual move down into the basement. (I haven’t gotten my husband to help me move the toy chests yet, however.)
To contain all of my children’s stuff, I took average cardboard storage boxes, and covered them in printed color Duck Tape. The boxes look so much prettier now with the Duck Tape on them. I gave each child 2-3 boxes each to hold the different items that they had in their toy boxes: a box each for their stuffed animals, one box each for art supplies, another each for books, etc. I then carried those boxes to the basement, and stacked them neatly on low shelves that my children can reach. I also clearly labeled each box to help my daughters more easily find their stuff. So out of cheap cardboard boxes and some color Duck Tape, I created a cheap but fun organization system for all of their toys!
For my kids’ new toy storage boxes, I used plain inexpensive carboard storage boxes from Staples.
One of the boxes that I decorated with Duck Tape for organizing my children’s toys.
Now, all I have to do is get those Duck Tape toy boxes into the basement – which might be tricky, as those toy boxes are wide, and the staircase is a bit more narrow. But hopefully, I can get those toy boxes downstairs soon! Once I do get the toy boxes down into the basement playroom. I plan to make seat cushions for each (in a fabric that my girls picked out), to give my daughters some extra seating in their play space. I also hope to add a custom beanbag chair for each child. I will have to let you know how it goes!