S/O - Where do you keep all your kids toys? - Page 2

[4evermom]

We always kept everything in the living room. I got shoebox sized clear plastic containers with lids that flip open and stay attached (so lids aren't lying around adding to the clutter) from Home Depot. Then I organized the toys so each bin held one type of toy. One for musical stuff and noisemakers, two for dollhouse furniture, etc. That way ds didn't need to dump a big bin looking for one thing. This also made it easy to rotate toys. Things that didn't get used, just strewn around, could be put in the attic for a while. The bins fit nicely sideways on standard bookcases. If the bookcases have doors, the living room can look great and the toys can be accessible. Larger toys just went directly on the shelves. I also used a low dresser for toy storage, kept all the toy trains and tracks in there.

Now we are having a problem because we have so many legos that ds wants kept together (sets he has built) plus loose pieces. I think we need a living room that has a work counter all around the periphery with shelves to the ceiling, lol.

[Drummer's Wife]

We have 5 bedrooms and they keep some toys in their rooms - mostly, though, they are in the 'formal dining room' which doesn't have a table in it, so it's like an extra play room. There are some in the family room (including books), and then some toys in the art/game closet, and a couple bins in the vacuum closet. The rest are in totes stacked in the garage. We have a ton of toys, waaaaay too many. My goal is to reduce the amount to about 1/8 of what we currently have. It's not so much that we don't have the room for them, b/c I can find a spot to put them - but it's just too much, and many of them don't get played with except every once in a while. Toys and clothes - these are the items that we have excessive amounts of...

[boringscreenname]

DS's toys are in his Bedroom, which is right next to the Living Room.He has one plastic tote full of toys, an activity table and a push toy. We keep a handful of toys out on top of the tote that he can easily reach. When he gets bored with them, we put them in the tote and pull out fresh toys. He also has half of a shelf on our bookshelf with his books.

I only do clean-up twice a day at nap time and bed time, otherwise I'd be spending my entire day picking up toys. On the days we have therapy appointments, or are going to be out of the house I pick up beforehand.

[AutumnAir]

OP here - this is great. I've got some good ideas for re-organising things from this.

Originally Posted by 4evermom

I think we need a living room that has a work counter all around the periphery with shelves to the ceiling, lol.

I was just saying to DH that in our 'forever house' we need just this!!

It's difficult to think of things to do right now - we're in a rented house and don't have the money or the inclination to make a lot of 'improvements' in terms of putting up shelving and such, although I'm already a bit clearer on how to set things up here and how I want to organise things when we can eventually buy a house of our own.

(I wish houses in the UK came with basements though! I would love the extra space!)

[octobermom]

We have 3 main areas to keep stuff. Most in her room she can bring the toy to another area of the house but its stored in her room.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v1...m/100_1324.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v1...m/100_1328.jpg
We divided her closet on 1/2 is her toy and book storage area the other clothing... and yes were in the process off adding a bed thus the frame and no mattress

in the hall we have a tall linen cabinet the top part holds towels and such but the bottom I use to store games puzzles ect thigs that eaither don;t get used all the time but we want to keep or games played more as family or that require some help.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v1...m/100_1323.jpg
I really need to go through this and clean it out and several things are missing as there strewn all over our front areea right now

In the area off the garrage where we have the computer kitchen area ect I have a small art table area set up the bin hold all her supplies and such
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v1...m/100_1263.jpg
I used to allow free range of art (past the toddler stage) but since shes now into paints markers glue ect its jsut too messy she and a friend got paint onto the carpet in the soon to be nursery not too long ago so I decided to make her a special place to work. She loves it and it is working out a lot better.

Oh BTW shes is 7

Deanna

[jadedqueen123]

Didn't read the whole thread so I am sorry if this has been posted before.

We rotate toys so it's like new toys every few weeks. In the meantime they are stored in bins out of sight.

[Wild Lupine]

We have a small house, too. It is a two bedroom condo, and it is all open plan on the first floor, with a kitchen, living room, and dining room. We do have a basement which saves the day because it allows us to rotate toys. We have toys in the living room and their bed room, and art supplies in the kitchen.

Originally Posted by noobmom

We have something like this
http://www.target.com/Storage-Organi.../dp/B000W9PM7A
and it works okay. Better than one big bin, I think, but it's not perfect. The toys still get jumbled up and lost to some extent.

I found the toys tended to get jumbled, too, until I organized each bin by type. One bin has the dinosaur models, another the duplos, another the small vehicles, another the wooden unit blocks, another the lacing beads, etc... The kids might take a whole bin out at a time to play with one block set and it makes clean up much easier.

[ShadowMoon]

All over the place. Most are in his room but there are a bunch in the living room as well.

We live in a 2 bedroom apartment so there aren't as many storage places as I'd like. I do prefer having toys/activities in several locations because it keeps things fresh and DS busy.

[GuildJenn]

We have toy storage in most rooms, because we consider our son's toys to be part of the family's stuff if that makes sense. Toys are not a blight on our spotless existence. He handles his toys more than I handle my knick knacks and books and he has the excuse that he's learning every day. That said, we probably have "too many" toys. But they get played with, get tidied up easily, and work for us.

Anyways, each kind of toy storage sort of fits with the room.

So in our living room and in our rec room downstairs we have one matching Ikea Expedit bookcase (the two-row one) on its side, and each one has several of the large wicker baskets, some shelves are left as open shelves, and some shelves have smaller baskets. The advantage of this arrangement is that we can easily rotate sets of toys upstairs and downstairs.

We also have a coffee table with smaller baskets underneath, and one of our bookcases has a row of baskets. The baskets are labelled and are not full, but that lets us keep like dinosaurs in one, Playmobil in some, cars in one, etc., so that there's not that sense of "jumble" that I personally don't like with the big toybox method. In our rec room we also have a bench with room for buildings/ships on the top and bins underneath for lego.

The shelves also have an adult feel to them and the wicker keeps the visual clutter down.

In the kitchen we have some shelving with crafts baskets and one large wicker basket for stray toys. In the bathroom we have a plastic basket for bath toys. In my son's room he has a preschool-type book holder, a bookcase with a basket, his dollhouse, and a train table thing with a bin underneath. In the office in my closet we have a bin of "rainy day toys" that are out of rotation, and in a real pinch, we have outgrown toys in storage in the basement storage room. In each of my husband's and my office we have a basket for stray toys and a few puzzles. And we all have books in various shelving units...it's a family hazard.

[Down2Earth]

We live in a small two bedroom house. In DD's room she has this shelf from Ikea. It is laying on it's side so we can put one toy in every cubby and a few stuffed animals on top. We also keep stuffed animals in one of these. She is also getting a wooden play kitchen and we'll be storing all of her pots and pans and dishes in that.

In the living room we have another Ikea shelf. We put one toy in each cubby once again, and have a row of baskets above that. We keep her books on the bottom shelf of a bookcase and keep her baby couch next to that.

I keep her extra toys in the baskets in the living room and rotate them out pretty regularly.