Organizing the Playroom!!


 This week I worked on the playroom. My kids are the luckiest kids in the world as we finished the basement in our new house just for them. They pretty much have the run of the basement, for now. 

Clean up time can make or break us! My youngest always needed direction when cleaning up, what to pick up and where to put it. I dreamed about the day that I could say clean up time and my boys would just do it. 

Well that day has come, after some organization happened. So let's dive right in. Here is the playroom area before me moved in. A lot of space and I knew if it wasn't organize it would be a sea of toys in no time.


In comes Ikea. I love their goodies! My husband and I went there for my scraproom and the playroom. We have a lot of Legos here.....I mean a lot! My son is a Lego engineer, and is always building so I knew I wanted a space for him to store, display, and build. So we created a Lego area.



I love the Ikea piece I picked out. It has bins for all his legos, and he can display what he has built on top. My son and I separated all his Legos by color, and gave them a bin. I then label by color so the youngest can find the color, and put the right color Lego in the bins. We even have some empty bins to grow the Lego collection. The table from Ikea is nice and wide and gives both of them plenty of space to build. 



I am currently in school to become a teacher so of course I have a school area! After school, and after snack, we come down to do our homework. Each child has a bin (labeled with their name) with a pencil, dry erase marker, eraser, scissors and glue stick so we don't waste time getting our supplies out. Next to our table I have a 4 drawers that hold our supplies, markers in one, other supplies in another, paper in one, and our learning flash cards in the bottom drawer. I use clear plastic bins to hold our coloring items, and the other two hold our school workbooks. The kids seemed to pull out coloring/workbooks when they can see them. The kids get their homework done and out of the way giving them more playtime later and I fulfill my passion to teach! Even my youngest saves his preschool homework so he can do it with the big kids! 



The next area I had to conquer was the the toy area. Before we moved we had bin after bin after bin of toys! As we packed our old house I had the kids go through their toys, and pick what they were ready to give away. They did great at this! In our old house I had used one of the Ikea Expedit bookcase and laid it on it's side. I purchased baskets and all our toys went in there. It worked for us so I knew I would be using that system again. We purchased two of them, put the baskets in, and filled them with toys. Each bin contained certain toys, and I wanted the boys to put them away in the right bins. I searched the internet for a picture of the items that belong in that bin, printed it out, cut, laminated, and tied them onto the bins. The kids love it! The picture helps my youngest one know what items go in the bin and my oldest is starting to read so he love to read the tags. When we change the toys in the bin we change the tag! It also helps when our kid's friends come over! 




I also have my DIY chalkboard table. That was such a fun project and you can go here to read about it, and see my before and after pictures. The kids love to draw on the table, and their easel is near by to continue their imagination.



What's behind door number two.....storage. We kept part of the basement unfinished for storage. In here is our old Expedit and I have filled most of the bins with toys. When the boys are bored with the toys in the toy area they can just switch out the bins. The shelves hold all of our games, some larger toys too big for the bins, and the plastic bins hold toys that we can rotate into the bins when we do a toy swap.



I love how our playroom is evolving. We still have ideas that we want to put in place but my main focus was to give my children a space of their own and organize it in a way that would make it easy for the kids to take care of their space. Clean up time is no longer a struggle
 (well we have our days here and there). 

 Happy Organizing!!!

14 comments:

  1. I have children who think this is what heaven will look like (referring to your lego station)
    love the labels on the black bins. so nice!

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  2. My favorite part is the Lego station. I love the term "Lego engineer". :) I also like that there is a dedicated space for homework.

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  3. Fantastic job Laura! LOVE that Lego area and all the labeled bins.

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  4. Absolutely beautiful job! Your kiddos are indeed the luckiest kids in the world :)

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  5. Laura, I am really impressed. Your play and school spaces look really great. I have 4 yr old tripets (plus a nearly 6 year old), so loved your little caddies for each of their school work bits. I am in the midst of doing the same thing with the names and pictures labels and you have inspired me to finish it. Love the lego organisation - I have clear bins and 'types' at the moment, and I can see it needs to be redone. Thanks for making the effort to post :) Carol

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  6. Thanks so much for your sweet comments and stopping by! Good luck with finishing your organization and I am glad I was able to give you some inspiration!

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  7. I love the lego area too--I see something like that in our future as our son gets a little older :) Thanks for linking up at Point of View!

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  8. Love the ikea bookcase on it's side with baskets! Where did the baskets come from?
    I am so copying your idea!!!

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    1. Thanks! I am glad you love it! The baskets are actually from Ikea and come in a few other colors. Thanks for stopping by!

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