Getting Control of the Toys

Are you ready for it? I was feeling invaded by toys here and I had a lot of questions on how to organize certain areas. I have found some solutions that we are trying out.

Here are the BEFORE photos *shudder*.

Here is the play area. Due to the snow we get lots of outside bulky toys in the basement during the winter. It's fun but makes for a more crowded space.

Here is the computer area. This will be moving over to the new office area once it is finished being painted and has the floor down.

Here is the toy shelf and television center. It's in the same room as the first picture above on the wall that is hidden. When it is tidy it isn't so bad. I think I'm going to have to find space on the top two shelves to put books and movies and move my stuff somewhere else. Eventually ...
This is the craft room that has become a dumping ground during the renovations. The big beige pile in the middle of the room is the dreaded carpet I target as being the reason for my not getting certain crafts done in a timely fashion.

Instead of searching the Internet for what I could do, I decided it was more beneficial to myself to first pile everything up and pull out the furniture and give it all a good vacuum and cleaning. You can do anything with a good cleaning. I had the children help pile things up and they loved it!

We had the drywall taped and filled cracks and sanded. This left about an inch of dust on everything. It was so nice to finally clean it up. I even was able to wipe down baseboards and wires and cords from the lamps and computers and television!

Here is what I have done so far. It's all I've been able to get to while working around the storage items that are out of their storage space. I hope this won't be longer than the end of January before we can get it all finished (hear that, hubby?!).

I don't know if you can tell BUT there is space on the floor now around the desk and to the sewing table.
Here is a close-up. Can you see it now? Oh my goodness, it's still terrible, isn't it?! At least seeing this mess has had me get rid of quite a bit of items so we will have less for our storage area.

Remember my questions about where to store toys and craft projects for the children? Well, this is what I did with the games. They were originally in a Rubbermaid bin in the hall closet taking up space and not very accessible for the children.

And when we are done or not using the games we are able to close the door and the mess is hidden away. I love doors.

A drawer for musical instruments ~ in my renewed buffet that my grandfather lovingly restored and my mother carefully stained and varnished for us. I'll post more about the buffet another day.

And the art supplies I want them to regularly access on their own are in another drawer.

And here is my closed up arts and craft plus instrument hider (and booze and good dishes ...).

And here is the "extra" supply of crafts including stickers, play dough, glue sticks, additional markers and pencil crayons, etc.

On my original list I wanted to organize puzzles, games, books, toy sorting, little toys and arts & crafts. I'm crossing out the ones I have done so far. I have plans for the rest but they, unfortunately, cannot get looked at until after we move the big carpet out of my craft room!

Labels: