Today I will walk you through my boys’ playroom! Through the use of zones I am able to keep order lasting just a little bit longer.
My boys are 5 and 7 and I have a serious toy overload problem. Kids change their interests and play styles often, so playrooms often need a refresh.
I prefer to start with a review of what toys we want to keep in the playroom. I keep less frequently used toys in storage (more to come on this!) so we have the right toys on hand.
When designing a space, it is always important to consider the needs of the end user. For a playroom, children are so visual and need to see their toys to know what is available for them to play with (Especially when you send them downstairs to play when they are already complaining about being bored!)
When I can I build out a visual so I feel like each zone has enough space and I did a blueprint for the room.
Not surprising for a boys' playroom, we have Hot Wheels cars, Legos, Nerf guns and video and board game zones. Each space has enough room that they can access their toys, spread out a little bit and not run into some one else playing.
I love this Trofast storage from IKEA. The drawers come in different sizes and colors and can be accessed from either side I have a arranged them a couple different ways but this set up works really well with the Legos boards on top so the boys have that visual queue of what to play with.
The other side houses dinosaurs, the small/medium weapons bin and Nerf guns. These could easily have labels but the little bit of toy visibility out the top has worked well for my kiddos.
Continuing counter clockwise in the room, we have the game corner. This has a shelf for some other toys but mostly houses the Nintendo Switch. Once the boys got into games enough on their own we moved this downstairs so we could have some quiet back. The Pottery Barn anywhere chairs work well for games or the inevitable fort.
The Nintendo items are all corralled into a bin for easy access and cleanup.
Finally the board games are in the last corner. These are intentionally in a closed cabinet so they are less visible and cause less mess, yet are still accessible. They have other “family” games upstairs but these they can play themselves. All the little hand held or smaller games are in a bin to prevent them from spilling out when you open the cabinet.
We have had this set up for about a month and I have seen a significant increase in use and they definitely fight my less on clean up.
