Toy Storage Solutions

[boilermakermom]

Please share how you store your LO's toys. I am trying to clean up the Christmas aftermath, and I am running out of places to put DD's toys. We have an overabdance of stuffed animals. I have gone through them and selected the ones we are getting rid of, but we still have a bunch left over. Where to put them?

We have the 9 square Closetmaid veneer organizer from Target in DD's room. This holds mostly books, some stuffed animals and other soft toys.

There are always books, a few baby dolls, and other toys in the living room. I need somethign to put them in...I was considering purchasing another 9 square organizer from Target, but thought I could find something nicer for the living room. Does Ikea have any good storage solutions? What do you use? Where did you find it?

Thanks!

[BabbyO]

We have the same organizer for DS' room. But we've purchased extra cloth "drawers" that fit in it. We have a few brown colored ones that sit under a bench we have in the living room/entry way area and no one even notices them, plus they hold quite a bit for us.

You could get another organizer and just get more basic colored drawers (black, white, tan, brown, navy) that will still look nice in your living room. I don't mean use all of those colors but just use one or two.

Another thought for the stuffed animals is a hammock for them. This is what we had when we were kids and it really helped.

Now if only I could figure out how to clean out DH's closet and my closet....

[wimama]

DS is 4 years old and he has toys in his room and in a basement family room/play area.

In his room he has a PBK bin for his stuffed animals.

http://www.potterybarnkids.com/products/boys-canvas-buckets/?cm_src=hero

In his room he has a PBK train table with rolling bins underneath. Those bins hold all his Legos and Playmobil. He uses the table to play with them on.

In his room he has an Ikea Expedit shelving system. This would probably work really well for your living room area. You can find some nice looking baskets to house toys in and it is great for storing bulky toys. We have the 4x2 one and we have it turned so the long side is horizontal. That gives DS a nice surface to store the big old Playmobil pieces that don't fit inside the compartments. There are some really great threads on here about people using the Expedit system with some great info in them.

http://www.ikea.com/us/en/catalog/products/10103088

In the basement play area we have a closet with some shelves and two rolling toy bins on the floor of the closet and two low Ikea Trofast systems for the other toys. I don't particularly care for the aesthetics of them at first. But, I love those things for toy storage. Ikea is awesome place to shop for toy storage.

http://www.ikea.com/us/en/catalog/products/00063672

[smilequeen]

We have the PBK wall system (but also a big playroom) with baskets. Totally would have gone IKEA if it had been an option at the time though. The PBK is nice, great for organization, and looks good, but it scratches easily and is overpriced IMO. The IKEA always looks just as good for less. We put bigger stuff on top of the shelves or on the train table (rotating). I keep the lego and playmobil in the boys' rooms though as we have a new baby coming and I want the little pieces out of the way.

In our family room I keep baskets of toys, but we have built ins with doors on them.

[daniele_ut]

We have 2 Ikea Expedit units and will pick up at least one more for DD's room. We have a 2x4 that is set up horizontally in the basement family room and then a 4x4 in DS's room:

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v609/daniele_ut/House/DSC03148.jpg

[justlearning]

Here's a thread I posted about how I used Container Store storage with the Ikea Expedit bookcase: http://www.windsorpeak.com/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=338539&highlight=expedit+container+store+sweater

That's how we store our toys.

[WatchingThemGrow]

Here's a thread I posted about how I used Container Store storage with the Ikea Expedit bookcase: http://www.windsorpeak.com/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=338539&highlight=expedit+container+store+sweater

That's how we store our toys.
Thanks for linking to that awesome thread. 14 months after you posted, I've finally gathered my parts! We got a Container Store in Oct, and a friend called from IKEA yesterday to see if I wanted anything. They were out of the 4x4 in white, so I settled on a 4x2 in white to store the stuff I don't want my DC to have constant access to - all the playdoh, marble runs, etc. Actually, I need to close my laptop and make a list of labels and a plan for how to organize it after we build the Expedit tonight. Can't wait! :boogie:

[justlearning]

Thanks for linking to that awesome thread. 14 months after you posted, I've finally gathered my parts! We got a Container Store in Oct, and a friend called from IKEA yesterday to see if I wanted anything. They were out of the 4x4 in white, so I settled on a 4x2 in white to store the stuff I don't want my DC to have constant access to - all the playdoh, marble runs, etc. Actually, I need to close my laptop and make a list of labels and a plan for how to organize it after we build the Expedit tonight. Can't wait! :boogie:

Glad it was helpful! I'm realizing that I should probably update and add more pics of our playroom storage now. I used to have Magnatiles, Lincoln Logs, etc. in baskets on our family room bookshelf. But I got tired of toys all over so I moved all that into their playroom Expedit now. So I really have put the smaller-sized sweater boxes (not the deep ones) to work holding all of those toys, plus their Legos, tinker-toys, etc.

[boltfam]

We have 2 Ikea Expedit units and will pick up at least one more for DD's room. We have a 2x4 that is set up horizontally in the basement family room and then a 4x4 in DS's room:

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v609/daniele_ut/House/DSC03148.jpg

This looks really nice!

[essnce629]

We also use the Expedit shelves and Container Store shoe and sweater boxes. We have one 4x2 (vertically) and one 5x5 in our playroom and one 4x2 (horizontally) in DS2's room. I LOVE them.

I posted this pic in the other long thread that was linked above, but here's the 5x5 in our playroom (bottom 2 rows are stuff that's safe for 19 month old DS2 to play with).

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v16/essnce629/IMG_1853.jpg

Here's the 4x2 in DS2's room

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v16/essnce629/IMG_1711.jpg

And we have this bookshelf from One Step Ahead in DS2's room as well. I like it since it lets all the books face out, has different depth shelves so the small books don't get lost, and it has additional toy storage as well.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v16/essnce629/IMG_1714.jpg