Toy Storage
Before I had children I thought that when I did have children they would only play with organic wooden toys that were pleasing to this designers eye. Enter mommyhood and 2 little guys later and this is what our man den/playroom combo looks like on a daily basis:
Are there wooden organic toys? Yup, there are some that are sprinkled throughout all of the rest of the primary color story madness. That’s just one corner of the room and the sad part is that I had cleaned it up about 30 mins prior to the photo while Hudson protested, “Mommy, no clean.”
It didn’t use to be that bad, but with many generous friends and family members the boys toy supply has doubled due to Christmas. I have started to weed out the older toys that are no longer touched, but of course when I start to put those aside Hudson discovers them again and they become the new favorite toy.
We are still planning on donating quite a bit of toys, but something must be done for storage. My go to source for storage is Ikea. Note to all, I also claimed I would never shop at Ikea after my newlywed years were behind me and we could afford real furniture. Ha ha I’m there at least once a month picking something up. 🙂
I have been doing some research and here is a small round up on storage solutions from Ikea that would work with toys.
No.1: Kallaxis the new Expedit. I like that it’s available in some high gloss colored options, but I don’t love that you can’t move the shelves so the toys need to fit in those predetermined sizes and in order to hide the mess you need to either buy baskets or doors. Not sure if this will be a good fit for us.
No.2: Stuva is the style that Ikea markets especially for kids rooms, but there is just something about it I don’t love. Perhaps it’s the opening/pull on the drawer or it’s me, not them, but I don’t think we are meant to be. Of course the measurements work perfectly for us, but I don’t know if I can do it.
No.3: Akurum is a blogger favorite and used many times in floating cabinets DIY projects and the size would insure lots of storage, but I see Asher having his hand closed in by the cabinet door, and I don’t like the feet, which means floating them looks best and that means Hudson would totally try crawling underneath or jumping on top the magical floating cabinet.
No.4: Besta comes in a variety of shapes and sizes, but this style would work best for us. I like that it comes in a variety of neutral shades and that the shelves can be moved and while doors are available it doesn’t look awful without them. Plus it’s only $59. I think we may have a winner.
We shall see what happens. Hoping to get this toy situation under control before the new year!
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ON THE BLOG
My living room is one of the rooms that evolved drastically from when we first moved one. Originally I painted the walls chocolate brown and did accents of white, blue and orange. That lasted maybe 2 years.
Our dining room sat empty for months. Okay maybe it was empty for just a handful of weeks and then we couldn’t take it anymore and put in a folding table and plastic outdoor chairs, but in my mind that was still empty.
On the main floor of our house we have a Florida room. Being that it’s a Florida room it is a considered a 3 season room, because there is no heat in the room. The previous owners used it as an indoor patio with outdoor furniture and it looked like this when we moved in.
We have two expedit shelves on the floor and they’ve worked out well for us. I have bins from Land of Nod in the bottom row and toys in the top row and on top. The cute buns from LoN make me feel a bit better about all the chaos and bring primary colors!
As the mother of three boys I can say being able to close doors on toy storage is a big plus.
We have a four by four Expedit and love it!! We actually have it in our family room since we don’t have a playroom. The kids toys are in these cute striped baskets from the container store and we have books in the higher shelved. For the really big (crappy) toys, we bought these awesome linen hampers from Target and keep them in the boys’ closets!