Playroom Organizing Roundup

It’s the end of the month which means it’s time to wrap up another monthly Organzing Roundup, hosted by Lara at I’m an Organizing Junkie. For the month of June, we were set to the task of organizing the playroom.

Now before I share the pictures, let me just say that my kids don’t have a lot of toys…and I don’t think that’s necessarily a bad thing. These pictures are just of the playroom, but we do have toys in other parts of the house so the kids can play where ever they are. So before you think I’m depriving my kids of all things fun, just know that this is only one area of the house…the actual Playroom that’s in our basement.

Anyway, here are the befores:

Here is your view when you first get to the bottom of the basement steps. Notice the COMPLETE LACK OF STORAGE!! Unless you count the empty paper box along the wall that has all of his marble chute pieces, there is not a single thing down her to store things…no shelves…no cubbies…no bins…nothing. Unless….

…Nope. Nothing on this side either. This is the wall opposite the TV. All the games and puzzles are lined up against the wall and under the table and chairs (that they have never sat in). And yes, I still use the art wall.

And now for the afters:

Wait, now not only are there no containers, now there are no toys! That’s right, I figured the easiest thing to do would be to just throw it all in the trash. The kids screamed, but I figure they’ll get over it.

Of course I kid! Thanks to another set of the wonderful wire cubes that I used in Jake’s room, we were able to get everything up off the floor and mostly into one unit. The 6 blue cubes are new and the 1 white one was left over from Jake’s room. The white one holds all the puzzles which are now beautifully stored in Organizing Bags. One bag for no more than 2 puzzles. When they are done with a puzzle, it has to be put away before they can get another one out. The big blue container is a repurposed file box that now has all his pieces and parts for his marble chute. I bought two canvas bins that fit great in the cubes and they hold all the little things that fell through the wire when I put everything away.

Here is a closeup of the cubes, including the labels that I made for each section. I just printed them on label paper and then put them on a cardboard backing and hole-punched them. I had a whole bunch of old key rings from another project and they fit perfectly on the wire. For the board games, I got rid of the boxes that I could and now just have the actually boards (the pieces for the game are in the small container next to the Uno game) . I read someplace about putting the games up on end like library books so that there is no longer a tumbling pile of boxes if the kids want the game on the bottom. The large plastic container on the side is actually a plastic 12×12 paper holder. I put all the smaller games (flashcards, memory) inside old checkbook boxes and now they all fit into this one big box.

And finally, I relocated the folding table and chairs (that they never sat in) and put it with the rest of Emma’s “food toys” that were already in another part of the house. The plastic drawers hold all of her pretend food, plates, and flatware. Now, she can go shopping with her cart, ring it out with her cash register (on top of the drawers), cook the food up, and serve it on the table. I can proudly say the table and chairs are now used ALL the TIME! But be careful what you eat. Notice the lack of refrigeration…

In the end I ended up spending about $20 total on the playroom storage. And I can’t even tell you how nice it is to go down in the basement now!!