Friday, February 6, 2009

Toy Storage

The toys are taking over everything. I'm online looking for good ideas for toy storage. Suggestions welcome!!

The kids and I have a cold, so we canceled everything and we're taking it easy today. Mary Grace is mad that I won't let her play with a tape measure. 10,000 toys, and they want to play with tape measures, pots and pans, etc. She's upstairs slamming doors to express her disapproval, and since I'm ignoring her, she's going to stand on the stairs and scream at me.

Charming.

I guess I should probably go take care of that. Anyway, please leave great ideas in the comments, before I just lose it and throw everything out onto the lawn.

4 comments:

Lisa said...

We've just gone to Target and have gotten the biggest bins we could find. Thinner bins (that can be shoved under the bed) contain matchbox cars and stuff like that. The bigger ones hide in the closets or in the basement and contain the bigger items like Tonka trucks and stuff like that.

Its not a fancy way to do things but an economical way.

Anonymous said...

Children's Ikea has some great options, we use their shelving and bins, the shelving is kind of pricey but actually worth it. The bins are super cheap and cute.

Have the T-shirt said...

When I did child care my playroom was very well organized. It had to be because there were a gazillion toys in there.

I used open shelves with open baskets for things like action figures, snap blocks, cars, etc.

And I used modular wooden cubes with larger open baskets for things that required a larger basket.

I always was able to keep the playroom better organized than my kids rooms though.

Cate said...

OMG, Yes... they will know them by the trail of their toys... I am daily overwhelmed by the insanity of the toys. I think I put more work in dealing with them/feeling stressed by them than they (Esther and her horde of cousins that descend regularly) gets out of playing with them. I have had to take drastic measures. I now rotate the toys -- I put half the toys in a box in the closet shelf, and then when she gets tired of the ones that are down, I put those up and take the ones out of the box for a time. I also have made a toy & play area in the living room -- no toys are allowed outside of the area or they risk the trash can. It can be as messy as they want to be in the area, piled up or whatever, but nothing outside of it. It really helps my mental state because now I can actually walk across my living room floor, whereas before I couldn't navigate. I also have many small bins -- I have found that having large bins only contribute to the mess, because they can't go through them to find what they want -- they just dump the whole thing, and then all the toys are everywhere. Small bins -- IF they get used, IF the toys actually get into the bins -- work better because they can see what is inside the bins and go through it to find it without dumping it out. And yet, with all these measures, I'm still drowning in toys, toys, toys!