Our downstairs room has been an office, a gym, and a guest bedroom within the 5 years we have lived here. For the past year, it has housed all of Yoyi’s toys. As more and more toys have come to stay, a simple basket and playpen was not solving our organization issues. Working slower than I would desire, we have been adding to the room to make it both functional and kid friendly.
I started with the never popular decision of getting a new piece of furniture. We went back and forth between a shelving unit and a toy box. At the end of a 2 week discussion, my husband agreed to buy a piece of furniture from Ikea. We both understood that spending substantial money on something that would be scratched, and surely have marker all over after a 2 month period, would not be a good idea. If you are planning on using a similar shelving unit, you will most likely need baskets to organize small toys. Ikea has lots of baskets at very good value. However, I decided to purchase mine from Amazon (because Ikea was closed due to the pandemic). For a final touch and to help all household members help with weekly organizing of the playroom, I used the Cricut to cut some heat transfer vinyl and add labels to the baskets. I tried to create names that would make sorting through the piles of toys easier, but that would also allow for more than 1 category to go into the basket. So far, I have organized the playroom 300 times and the labels are nothing if not helpful.
I kept my existing basket to hold the stuffed animals. I am not sure how we still have a basket-full after I have taken bags and bags to my classroom. Other items on the floor include the baby’s toys (both a play-mat and an activity center) and Yoyi’s chair. At one point we had Yoyi’s cars inside the room but the count on those is up to 7 and they have made a new home in the garage (where cars belong).
Now, on to the walls…
The moon shaped shelf was handmade and inspired by a Pottery Barn piece. It was initially intended to be placed on top of Yoyi’s crib, but I was afraid of it being too heavy and maybe falling and hurting him. I am sure this would never happen, but worrying about non-existing issues is something I often do. I found the cloud shelves at Target and we painted them all the same shade of white. The clouds are perfect for books and I have a lot of my read aloud favorites there. I will have a future post about my favorite children’s books.
The other two walls include painted mountains and framed paintings. I convinced Jorge to sketch and paint the mountains. I thought it would tie in with the whole moon and clouds idea (because mountains are high). Of course, I believed that was a 20 minute project, but it proved to be more of a 2-3 day project. He is such a perfectionist. I wish I had a tutorial on that because a lot more goes into painting mountains than one would imagine. The framed paintings I found at Home Goods. I saw them and immediately fell in love with them. This NEVER happens, ever. I always second guess my purchases, but not this time. I think they will be with us for a long time.
