Kid-friendly living room

[confustication]

I need inspiration. I'm about to start purging the young baby stuff from the house (the exersaucer etc) since DS 2 is able to pull to stand steadily, and I assume he will soon be walking.

Now, I need ideas for how to reclaim some of my space so it feels more adult, while being accessible to the three kids (I envy people who can put out flowers and vases- around here, that would be a huge mess.)

Inspiration? Pictures? Great ideas? Preferably super cheap (Why don't I just ask for the moon while I'm at it?)

[VisionaryMom]

MIL gave us a tall hutch a couple of years ago. Since I do have china, but it's not my thing, I tucked it away. We took the doors off the hutch and use it as a game/puzzle area. It's in the living room, and the only kid items that can go in the living room must fit into the organizational scheme. The things the kids use all the time are on bottom, and the top shelf has games for adults.

[greeny]

Tall book shelves or cubbies/storage (secured to the walls, of course).

The bottom shelves/cubbies have kid stuff in nice organized bins (that match the decor/color of the room). The top shelves, that the kids can't reach, have nicely presented books and decorations and stuff that YOU like.

[busymama77]

I agree about the shelves/cubbies. Target has some cute stuff that is relatively inexpensive. I also like to use just regular wicker baskets - the dark color - since it goes with our furniture/decor - to pile toys in. I tend to hunt for them at garage sales and thrift stores. I'm sure you could find something there that can be painted or refinished.

[confustication]

Tall shelving really appeals to me for this space- our house is pretty small, so we have to be creative. I'm kind of tying with doing a whole 'built in' shelving set along one wall to house the TV and all the 'stuff'. The idea of low kids cubbies seems really appealing and functional while I could put stuff up high to be slightly less inviting....

Now, to convince my dad we need a father/daughter construction project (dh is great, but he is the quintessential computer-geek- he gets nervous when I suggest construction of any sort.)

[zoebird]

knock-offwood.com is my new favorite haunt--and you can create a great center for your family using her plans (or modifying them to your needs). but she does have a whole entertainment center/storage wall thingy that might work well for you.

we have some built in shelves, and the bottom two have baskets with DS's things: bottom right has his drum and musical instruments; bottom left has a larger basket with all of his stuffed toys, play silks, etc. right above the bottom left he has his blocks, cardboard books, bead thingies, and so on.

he also has his balance bike in there, but we don't have any other furnishing really, thouh i am looking at making the day bed with storage and the low shelves (from the site above) to put on either side and then we will still ahve a wide open space, but also some more storage and a day time reading space or a space to relax and so on.

anyway, those are some ideas that i have.

[treeoflife3]

To keep our living room kid friendly... we just made it a play room.. bahah!

she has one little cubboard where all her toys go (the doors broke off because it was cheap, otherwise the point was that everythign could be hidden to make the room look grown up) and some books. If things don't fit, it either means time to purge or something goes to her room. Otherwise, we don't have much in here. Its boring but its definitely comfortable and right now with a 17 month old, I'm more interested in comfortable than pretty... yeah vases wouldn't work here either! I can't even have a glass of water hehe.

We just keep the living room to necessities and figure it would be called a pretty room if we weren't meant to live in it... yeah, that sounds good... I'll go with that for my exuse on why our living room has no sense of style/decoration.. ha!

[spatulagirl]

My living room is very simple. There are no coffee tables or anything. We have a big entertainment center/bookshelf we had custom made in Italy. There are locked cabinets on the bottom (movies on one side, kids games and music the other side). Wii accessories in the drawers in the middle. TV and then the higher shelves have things we have collected from our world travels plus books.

We have a wooden storage box I bought at target that sits between the two sofas. It holds all the little people toys. It has a lid so we use that as a place to put drinks as well.

Now we have toys in the room for the 2-year-old and will have toys in here still with the new baby too.

I have a console table by the entryway which is behind my big sofa. It has pictures and non-breakable items on it. My kids have always been good with them.

[The4OfUs]

I have two huge wicker baskets with lids that all the miscellaneous toys get dumped in, and then several canvas baskets that play sets are in (train, cars, castle) that they drag around the room wherever they're playing with it. I don't mind the sight of the canvas baskets with toys hanging around, because hey - I have kids. The two huge baskets I LOVE because they look purty and disguise all the misc large and small crap that accumulates. The only eyesore, IMO, is the big Tonka Dumptruck, but they both still love riding around in it at 4 and 6-1/2, and I don't ahve the heart to get rid of it - so it's parked between my oversized chair and its end table. :

[bezark]

Our living room is pretty simple and kid friendly. We have plants, but they're on a tall sofa table that DS can't reach.
We chose to skip a coffee table in favor of a large-ish end table and a sofa table so we'd have plenty of play space in the middle of the room.

The plant on this table is fake, and the lamp is velcroed to the table. The chairs are white, but they're slipcovers that can be washed/bleached as often as necessary.

The area rug here is 8x11", and DS has that whole area to play as he wishes. The TV cabinet has locks on all of the doors where we store current books and all of our movies. The plant on top is also velcro'd down.

DS's toys are all kept behind the couch. Some in a large basket in the left corner here, and the rest are now stored in wicker baskets inside of the sofa table.

[mommariffic]

My living room doubles as a play room since it's off the kitchen and where we spend most of our time. I actually enjoy having some of pretty wooden toys displayed She has a "corner" of the room with her wooden tree house, and barn. I've also purchased some pretty knit baskets and a neat mini cabinet to keep her other, smaller toys in. So that way it looks funky/nice but holds all her treasures as well.

We got a large, dark area rug. Stains are not to be feared!

Built in bookshelves help, and I keep my "fancy" stuff on top where she can't reach.

[Juvysen]

we have our couches at angles from the wall and have playspace behind them with the kids wooden castle back there. I am loving that, at the moment, but beyond that I'm

[confustication]

I'm wondering if part of out problem is the layout- our lr is a long and narrow room. I am beginning to think that we'll eventually want to change our furniture to something that will work better in the space.. Bah!


For now though, the built ins are already in the 'measure and design' stage. Yay! A retired father with his own workshop is a blessing indeed.

[llwr]

Great ideas; thanks!

[happyhats]

My living room is rather small. We also have the problem that pictures cannot be hung in here because anything heavy falls of the walls (apartment drywall). I used to have our bookshelves in here but after days upon days of dd taking every book off the shelves she could we moved them to our room and now have the computer desk in here. The few breakables are out of reach (the desk has a hutch, and we also have a small baby wardrobe turned media center). I have a small basket for toys but I'm going to be repurposing a ottoman since it's a little larger (my daughter has been dragging things out of her room and at a year and a half doesn't put much back-plus soon enough the new baby will have toys out here too). Since we all take our shoes off at the door I'm moving her basket under our end table for them to have a more tidy area. I have the couch angled so when the new bean arrives all the bigger equipment can be folded up behind the couch when not in use (swing, walker). I often put my dd's rocking horse back there too since she uses it almost every day and it never ends up back in her room. It is most defenitely cozy, but it's not as cluttered as it sounds and the toys aren't USUALLY the first thing you see (other than the horsey anyway). Hopefully the ottoman will bring a bit more order to the toy chaos and I'll be pretty pleased with things.

I've made the place more grown up with furniture (dark woods, leather furniture, a nice rug tha is scotch guarded), the few out of reach accessories, some wall decor I created, and hidden clutter.

[SubliminalDarkness]

Our living room is simple, too. We don't have any decorative items aside from paintings hung on the wall.
We just have a large sectional, two wingback chairs, a treadmill(lol), an entertainment center that holds our audio system, and two bookcases filled with books and DVDs. On top of the bookcases I have three cloth, hard-side bins that hold any 'clutter' items so there's not just a mess on the shelves. I HATE that. One bin holds dog stuff, one bin holds DS1's homework supplies, and the other is miscellaneous.

When the kids are older, we'll worry more about decorating. But it's just not feasible yet, especially financially.

[candycat]

I think this link will work, I've never done flickr before. I added comments under the photos.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/5361541...th/4955003013/

[diana_of_the_dunes]

We've been working on the same thing... We have a pretty "adult" living room, and I needed a way to make it a little more kid friendly while still maintaining a little style (I worked my arse off restoring the woodwork and floor, and we have some nice antique furniture). While I would have liked something a little classier, I just went to Target and got this cube organizer for $40. I put Ethan's little toys into a fabric bin. The rest just sit on the shelves. Not that he plays with them right now anyways, he'd rather take all the storage containers and lids out of the kitchen cabinets... But everything is accessible to him, and I'm sure he'll eventually appreciate it.

Here's a pic (please ignore the missing woodwork and dropcloth... the renovation is at a standstill since having a baby! ): http://i67.photobucket.com/albums/h3...x/100_2890.jpg

Not shown is my bookcase. It has lockable glass doors, so most of our books are inside. Expensive, breakable stuff is on top, since it's about 5' tall. I'm kind of a minimalist when it comes to decoration, so we don't have a lot of knicknacks to begin with. I don't know how well it will all work once E starts walking, but so far it's all survived him pulling up and trying to grab anything within reach!!

[zoebird]

man, i'm deeply, deeply offended by the drop cloth and missing woodwork in the photo, and particularly offended by the fact that renovations stopped because you had a baby. how dare you!

lol looks good!