How I Handle the Living Room Toy Dilemma
If I walk into my living room and there’s a toy on the floor, I feel like my house is a mess. Yes, I realize that’s over-reacting a little and, um, I’m working on that. Even as I sit here right now, writing this post, there’s a hot wheel car, some weird googly eye thing and another weird green frog toy sitting on the floor and I’m doing okay. Will I pick it up after I’m done here, probably. :)
Anyway, I’ve been promising to post pictures from my home and show you how I organize my house.
Here’s a picture of the sofa table in our living room. I had to stop using it as an actual sofa table, which means putting it behind the sofa, and put it against the wall instead. Why you ask? Well, because one too many times some little feet would knock things off the table. A very special candlestick got broken, but I didn’t get mad. That’s what I get for trying to make my living room look like a magazine page with three children in the house.
Also, my middle son loves to run and jump over the couch. Kids will be kids. :)
So, in this picture you see my sofa table, some decorations (and a vent that seriously needs to be painted the same color as the wall, we just got it. It’s on my to-do list.) and down below are three canvas totes. I bought these at Wal-mart and just love them.
Now, my older kids can keep their toys in the playroom and their room because they are getting to that age where they like to play in their room by themselves. They are also growing out of toys and are totally into electronics.
My 3 year old on the other hand wants to play in the same room where mom and dad are. We are so well loved!
He mainly likes to play with hot wheel cars, yo-yos, blocks and bouncy balls. That’s what I have stored in the totes. He can lift them and carry them over to the carpeted area and play and then when he’s done, put them all back up. If he ever wants to bring a bigger item in from the playroom we go get it and then put it back up when he’s done.
So far this seems to work out well. It sure beats being stressed out over toys in the living room. I want our kids to be comfortable in their home and be able to play where they want, but I also don’t want some one stopping by and feeling they just walked into a day care center. Make sense?
So, what solutions do you have for scattered toys in the living room?
Tags: Life Around Our House, Living Room, Organizing Basics, Storage, UncategorizedRelated Stories
POSTED IN: Life Around Our House, Living Room, Organizing Basics, Storage
10 opinions for How I Handle the Living Room Toy Dilemma
Suzanne
Aug 5, 2007 at 12:48 pm
Oooh, I LOVE that idea! I have a table very similar to that in my entry way as well and I never thought of putting those bins underneath of it. Bye bye magnetix in my living room!
Julie
Aug 5, 2007 at 9:54 pm
Thanks Suzanne! I know all too well about those magnetix toys too. Ugh! They are cool though. :)
Angelique
Aug 6, 2007 at 8:06 am
I’ve been trying to do something similar in my livingroom (and in other rooms), but somehow my son manages to DUMP everything in the bins… then turns the bins into playthings!
It used to make me crazy! There were piles of toys everywhere and bin/box “structures” all around. But I think it’ll eventually stick. Besides, when he isn’t looking, I sometimes throw away severely broken toys–ha! How I hate plastic sometimes, especially when it’s attached to some little cruddy plaything.
:)
Angelique
Julie
Aug 6, 2007 at 9:16 pm
@Angelique - Why DO we buy our kids toys? My husband and I ask ourselves that all the time.
For example: I bought a really nice foosball table. My husband and I have been having a blast with it. The kids love it too, but do you want to know what they’ve played with more? That’s right. The ginormous box it came in! And we really want to throw it away because it’s taking up half the playroom, but they love it.
My 3 year old finally stopped the dumping thing. After many fits when being told to clean it up i think it just got old for him. He still dumps the toys out on the floor to look for something every once and awhile but he cleans it up pretty fast. :)
Angelique
Aug 7, 2007 at 12:35 pm
Ha! I love the box story! Shouldn’t a place called Boxes R Us open its doors?
I actually buy my cutie pie something only when forced to. I’m not even getting him anything for his birthday because he said, “I don’t want you to get anything. Everyone at the party will bring presents!” And it’s true. And his relatives will buy 25 or so gifts (no, I’m not kidding), and I won’t be able to get rid of them.
If I had the perfect holiday, it would be one where NO presents were exchanged and only experiential “gifts” were allowed, such as a trip to the museum or a kid-friendly place or a weekend somewhere frugal and fun!
Boy — I sound like a curmudgeon, don’t I?
:)
Angelique
sherry
Aug 7, 2007 at 8:41 pm
I love what you’ve done! My girls are almost 5 years and almost 2 years. They do play in the bedroom sometimes but mostly they prefer to play out in the living room. I had to adapt to that because we’re in an apartment so we don’t have a playroom and their room is the smallest one.
What I did was I had a bookshelf in the living room with three shelves. My husband and I put most of the books away in the office, leaving just one shelf of books for now. The bottom two shelves became storage spaces for toys. I went to the dollar store and bought a lot of little baskets and even used some large ice cream tubs, and I sort the toys by type (train stuff, toy farm, play food, etc) and the toys go in their appropriate container on the shelf.
I still have to do a lot of picking up myself and remind them that they have to put stuff away before taking more out, but it’s helped a lot and it makes the evening much nicer for us!
Taming toy clutter
Aug 7, 2007 at 8:54 pm
[…] over at Declutter It has a nice setup too for dealing with toys in the living room (though I’m still jealous of her playroom!). Also, the new Stacks and Stacks blog has a tip […]
Julie
Aug 7, 2007 at 9:00 pm
@Angelique - Boxes r Us, perfect! We are trying to teach our kids it’s quality not quantity that counts.
For example: for Christmas this year our big present is we are all flying to Colorado for Christmas. My husband’s dad from Albania will be there, all of his brothers’ and sister’s family. It’s going to be a blast! That is worth so much more than 15 or so wrapped presents under the tree. They are pretty excited!
Julie
Aug 7, 2007 at 9:03 pm
@Sherry - That’s perfect! I think learning to adapt to your environment is the key. Make your space work for you, not the other way around.
I try to tell people to get over the “where it’s supposed to be stored” idea and think about the “where can I store this where it will make sense for how we live” idea. it’s so much easier to live that way.
Sara's Mama
Mar 10, 2008 at 5:36 am
Oooh, the putting those bins under the sofa table was smart, Julie. We used to have one of those common toy organizer units with the primary-colored plastic bins but I share your desire for my family room to “look like a magazine page” and therefore wanted it to look more adult and less like a preschool playroom after the toys were put away. So we’ve graduated to bins similar to yours (faux-suede ones from Target), but in a color that matches our decor. One initial problem was that these bins are larger than what we used to have and even with extra effort, we (*I*) couldn’t keep the toys sorted until we found these great mesh toy bags at KidsKlutterKatchers.com to segregate the small stuff inside the bins. This solution is working well for us so far and looks pretty nice. On to the next mission. :)
Have an opinion? Leave a comment: