Photos of toy storage in the living room please :)

[emeyer76]

I am trying to decide what to do with our toys in the living room and looking for some inspiration. Most of the time when we are at home we are all in the living room, which is attached to the kitchen/eat-in area and laundry room - really the heart of the home. Usually we're making dinner/cleaning up/doing laundry while DS is playing in the living room so we can keep an eye on him (we do have a finished basement where the big toys live and he can sprawl out and run down there, but he's rarely down there unsupervised). And with #2 on the way soon, I imagine we'll stay upstairs for the most part and not necessarily spend any additional time in the basement. We don't have a separate play room other than the basement, because all of the other rooms are occupied.

So, we are refinishing our living room floors next week and I'm planning to do some sort of built-in storage for toys, but not sure what I want... open shelving? cubbies? closed cabinets? I would love your suggestions, what works/doesn't work, or pics of your dream set-up if you could have anything in the world (in the living room) We are doing a massive post-holiday toy purge as part of this process (even DS is getting into it!) so we should be left with the 'best of the best' and stuff that he uses often.

Thanks in advance!!

[joeslittlewoman]

I will see if I have pics in my photobucket. In our last house we had one medium-large decorative trunk for toys, and a small-medium trunk for books. I toyed with adding shelves with decorative baskets (i like things hidden), kinda like this http://mobile.shopping.com/productDe...uctId=90389169

When we moved we made the formal living room/office space a play room. I brought their armoire in to house a small tv, electronic toys, and dress up clothes/accessories. I am planning on putting a mini couch in the room and buying open front wooden stackable cubbies. http://www.biglots.com/p/c/youth-1/e...sh-storage-bin

This is the new space. The armoire will stay, but the large trunk will go. It was the toy trunk in our living room at the old house. The smaller trunk stacked on top of it when not in use.

[tallanvor]

We never really stored any toys in the living room. We would bring some toys down in the morning, and if they wanted something different, we'd put away some toys and bring new ones out. At night, they all went back to the bedroom. The only time we had any toys stored in the living room was when YDD was a baby, and that was limited to a small canvas tote that slid under the end table.

[emeyer76]

Thanks!! I sort of hate the layout of our house, even though it's fairly standard for the 'burbs around here. Just so much wasted "open" space and not enough useable space, especially for kids I like the open space and all, but I'd rather have less actual square footage, and more user-friendly floorplans, if you know what I mean. Looking forward to your inspiring ideas!

[joeslittlewoman]

Originally Posted by emeyer76 Thanks!! I sort of hate the layout of our house, even though it's fairly standard for the 'burbs around here. Just so much wasted "open" space and not enough useable space, especially for kids I like the open space and all, but I'd rather have less actual square footage, and more user-friendly floorplans, if you know what I mean. Looking forward to your inspiring ideas!

I hear you on the floor plan. I think our old house seemed small because of the open 2-story plan. We had a little exposed area under the stairs I could keep toys, but that was the only space downstairs for it. And everything was visible. But, I prefer that the kids play near me while they are little, so we made it work with "hiding" the toys.

Our new house has a pretty open plan, too, but is divided into smaller rooms, so there is some separation of space. Wish a couple of the rooms were more closed off.

There are lots of coffee tables and ottomans that have storage. I have a Bombay chest in the living room for diaper and DVD storage that would be plenty of space for toys once we have all are disks digital.

Here it is in the old house. (Iron man had just joined us for a bday party, lol)

[TalkinBoutMyGirl]

Our toys in the living room were in a basket slid under the entertainment center. I also kept some under where the DVD storage was. I didn't keep many in the living room. Oh and her doll house was in the living room at one point just bc her room lacked the space.

[~Laura~]

Our bedrooms are for sleeping and special toys, all other toys are kept in the living room. I bought clear plastic bins and DH built a shelving unit to hold them. It works really well for us. I'd prefer it more hidden, but the kids can easily access it.

[solarbabies]

We also do not keep toys in the bedrooms. The toys we have are in a trofast system from IKEA in the living room.

[mrspopo]

http://img29.imageshack.us/img29/4008/imag6038.jpg

This is a picture from our playroom earlier this year... that white rolling cart is now in the living room for toy storage. There's also one closed cabinet with books. I change out the toys in the cart now and again, currently we've got play silks in one, instruments in the middle, and random stuff on top. The rest of the toys are in the play room.

[crunchyNurseMommy]

All DS's toys & most of his books are in the living room. I try to "hide" a few toys @ a time to rotate them making him think they are new

Here is the bookshelf/toy storage (needs to be paired down since Christmas!)

Here is the overflow bucket of balls