~ Kids Playroom ~

 

 

If you are a mom, I'm sure you are far too familiar with this struggle.... the TOYS that take over the house!  They're everywhere.  Kitchen, Dining room, Living room, bedrooms, bathrooms, everywhere!! Hopefully you have not yet had the experience of stepping on Lego because I hear THAT is the worst!

 

Toys are everywhere which leads me to the need of creating -- the PLAYROOM!!

 

We had a nice area in the front of our house that was designed to be a dining room or office area. We may use it for that one day, but for now, we've got kids and it was important to us that they have an area that they can play in and we could keep their toys in, separate from the rest of the house.  So in order to create a playroom area, sometimes we have to sacrifice another room in the house.  But it is well worth it!!  

 

I did a lot of searching on Pinterest for ideas.  There are LOTS of great ones there just search "playroom ideas" 

I pinned a whole board when I was searching of ideas if you want to check that out it's here: 

Jenn's Toy Room Board

 

With the ideas from Pinterest and some help from a dear friend, we came up with an idea of what we wanted to do.

 

First place we went to was IKEA   

That place is WONDERFUL for toy storage solutions.

We decided to go with the Kallax system:

This unit is actually two KALLAX 4 Spot shelving units and two KALLAX 8 Spot units. 
The two long ones placed on it's side and then the four spot ones on the top corners.  We chose white so that the colours of the playroom would stand out, but there are several different colours to chose from. 

A colourful PHOTO for the middle of the unit.  Right beside Olaf there on the top we grabbed these fun FRAMES with cute MONKEY photos.  I hope to get the kids to draw pictures of themselves and we can place hand drawn photos in the frames, something fun like that with their artwork.  They do a lot of crafts during the days so we hung a line above this unit and clipped their art work on to display their masterpieces.

LEGO is placed in the Lego storage boxes and kept way at the top of the unit ;)

Books are stored in the middle, larger toys, and then smaller toys kept in square cubes.

The yellow cubes are from Ikea as well they are called DRONA boxes and the blue and pink ones are great because they have those windows on the front that the kids can see what is in them and a little handle so it's easy for them to pull it out.  They are from Thirty One, huge fan of those, there are a couple prints you can get in those and you can get lids for them as well if needed. 

These larger toy storage boxes are also from Ikea they're called KUSINER box.  I like how the kids can see into the box for their larger toy items.

 Above those we put two RIBBA Picture ledges across to hold their small action heros and small cars they usually play with.

It's nice because it leaves those toys they always play with out in clear view so they aren't always searching in their toy boxes for them.

 

 

The kids love playing with cars and their little play sets and we found that they liked to have them on a table and not sitting on the floor with their toys.  So this table is actually a COFFEE TABLE, found at Ikea.  They are always bringing toys over to it and playing on top of the table.  It's just the right height for them to set their cars, lego or little play sets and play.  The smaller TOY BINS fit perfectly underneath an they are only $10 for all three.

The little PLAY RUG is also a necessity when you have boys so they have little roads and such to drive all those cars on.  Ikea has a couple different ones.

Next I wanted to make a little reading, quiet time nook area, this idea was from a friend.  When we were over to her place I noticed her kids went to an area similar to this a lot.  They would take smaller toys there and just sit and relax with them or the child would grab a book and look through it so I wanted a little cozy corner. 

This happens to be our favourite place in the room to sit on the floor and cozy up with them reading them a story or just talking about their day. 

 

Of course when you're sitting on the floor it's got to be comfy so I found this fun shag rug from Walmart. Comes in a couple different colours.  Pillows were given to us by a friend and they were the perfect colour to go with everything else in the room.  The big LEAF CANOPY makes it feel like a space of it's own in the corner.  I switch up the books weekly on the shelves and we love that they can see the front of the book because when it's in a book shelf they can't really tell where their favourite books are.  

 

The book shelves are actually SPICE RACKS that we had painted in the toy room colours. 

Another Pinterest WIN!!  Just the right size!

 

 

 

Another couple extras to finish the room off was that we added these Snap Pockets and Bins from THIRTY ONE  If you've got lots of paper from school or photos piling up on the counter,  these are great for that.  They also hold a binder if your children are into hockey card or Pokémon card collecting.  The pockets all snap together so you could have them hanging down like this, or I've also seen them hanging across a long enough bar horizontally.  Below the snap pockets we have another bar holding the snap bins.  These guys snap together as well and can be used for small toys.  Lego, cars, Barbie accessories etc. 

 

 

 

Last but not least, I've got to talk about this LIGHT!!!  You wouldn't think lighting is that big of a deal until you replace it to something better.  What a difference it makes to a room. 

 

This light just gives the whole room a fun feeling, and it was fun to put together.  It's huge, it's oversized, and t's funky and FUN!!  The kids love it and I think it works perfectly in a fun toy room.

 

So there it is, our Toy Room Make over!!!  It was really fun to do! 

 

The main thing is getting a great storage unit for the room to give it structure for the toys and then adding all the fun extras.  Lots of great ideas to be found on Pinterest too!  Great wealth of ideas on there! 

~ Jenn