Organising toys & toy storage help!

Hey guys,

Looking for suggestions on how to organsie the abundance of toys we have around here.

The toys are in our living room, as thats where DS plays (dont' really like him upstairs in his bedroom, he gets into to much trouble up there :)

I've taken a photo of the toy pile at the moment - we have a few boxes but all the toys are just chucked in there, and i would prefer to group them together (i.e. car toys in one container). We also have a huge heap of soft toys that i have no idea where to put.

I want something that the kids can reach themselves, i don't want to constantly be getting things down for them, so something that is wide and not tall is better (i saw this hanging cylinder for soft toys from ikea, but DS would only be able to reach the bottom section so its a bit silly).

At this stage i'm leaning towards getting some cheap low bookshelves, and getting tubs that go in it so i can divide the toys. Then i might just get a plain toybox for all the soft toys.

As its our living room i would prefer something that looks niceish also - i saw some nice cube bookcases (except they are very expensive!!), which could be nice, but as long as i get some nice tubs for the normal bookshelves i don't know that the extra price for the cube ones is worth it.

I've also included a pic of some system i saw on ebay - but i guess its no different in theory than the bookcase & tubs idea.

Flickr: Photos from davis_fam_photos


Am i missing something? Does anyone know of a great way to organise toys???

And what do you guys do with the bigger stuff like pretend strollers, trolleys, block carts etc... I've got a little row of them going, but it makes the room look so junked up. DS rarely plays with them anyway, so i'm thinking of putting them away, unless somebody has some great storage ideas??

Thanks :)

We have the same sort of system in Zander's room & it works really well. We try to make sure he has only one bucket / tub out at a time. We have a line up of bg cars, vaccuum, bike etc etc and would love ideas too!

1st is that all the toys you have in lounge :lol: my verandah was enclosed 1.8m x 4.5m was supposed to be our new office well it is the playroom which overflows into lounge + whats in his room :lol:

anyway I was looking at that ebay system just last week, my friend has one for her 18mth old is real cool but tubs aren't very large

anyway if you want something stylish how bout low lying bookcase but use timber baskets that way people wont know whats in them straight away IYKWIM!!!

also google trofast frame should bring up a ikea page excellant price in funky look !!!!!!!

Krystal has one of those starage shelves (dora) they are good, but as rach said, the tubs are very small.

i think look at ikea, they seem to have different storage systems.

krystal has two big toy boxes (both wooden, one we unscrewed the lid so everything is just there ready to play, and the other is a bookcase with the toy box instead of a bottom shelf.) these work well for us!

i also have a few large round baskets with handles (which i bough for $20 from the cheap caneware shop up here) i did plan on using one for the bathroom - towels rolled up in the basket. but ended up filling one with books & one with 'smaller' type toys (the stuff that gets lost in the bottom of the big toy boxes!)

i think your idea of low bookshelves with tubs is great (or you could buy square/rectangle baskets or something similar to match your loungeroom) you could alternate the positions of the tubs once a week or so, for some variety! (i often change around our toy set up, as ive realised Krystal plays with what is most visible)

wow i have rambled!
HTH!

I was going to say IKEA IKEA IKEA...

But we're still lost on storing dolly strollers and big things too.

We had a HUGE clean out.... all the little toys that Kiara doesn't play with anymore got put away ready for bub#2 and then some of the wagons and bike type toys are now outside toys, and we have saved heaps of space...

LIke you we have it all in the lounge, and it ends up taking over! We only have one tub now, then a few of the bigger toys to, like stroller, table, reading chair etc...

I was going to say IKEA also, I just discovered the website the other day with examples of rooms etc....fantastic - have you seen it. We will be in Adeaide for a week soon & I will be heading to IKEA first thing.
Other suggestions, small clothes baskets with lids. You can get a places such as Target or Spotlight cheap & they look nice.
For puzzles & small things I have some really cute looking suitcases on the bookshelf. I also just pop some toys on the bottom shelf as everything else has been moved due to little naughty fingers..so each night I just line stuff back up on the bottom shelf. Then in Charlies room I have a plastic yellow tub with handles from Hardware shop, that was cheap also.

Yael, all of the stuff the kids don't play with that much I put away or take outside. But I think you've got pretty limited backyard space too don't you? But there isn't really much you can do with the big stuff. For storage I use roller boxes and everything is categorised - cars in one, trains in another, lego in another and the same for the girls with barbies in one, ponies in another, little people in another etc and they are all in their bedrooms and that works well for us, but if they are all in your loungeroom, it would just look cluttered.

One thing we looked at getting was a coffee table that had storage underneath, so it wasn't so much a table I suppose, but the storage was drawers so you could just pull them out and get what you needed.

Another option I looked at was at cheap discount shops or fantastic furniture, you can get these cheap MDF cupboards/small wardrobes and I was thinking of getting one, and putting all their toys and books in it inside containers because then you could hide them behind the cupboard doors and then they just have to pull the container out as they needed it.

I love the Expedit...we have one 4x4 in the lounge room and one matching 4x4 IKEA Perth recently purchased from Ikea again in the playroom so we can at least use them together later on as bookshelves etc when the kids are older.
You can even get the smaller one and have it side ways by the way you were describing. IKEA Perth

All the bottom shelves have clear boxes (in lounge room) and baskets/boxes (in playroom) for the toys and are easy access....and the rate kids grown they reach high enough very quickly to other shelves anyway.
The top in the playroom is for the not so much played with stuff/books and stuffed toys.

With the other bulky things (black board/fisher price house etc) we just keep around the walls of the room to keep un-cluttered...with a huge big basket/toy box thingo for everyday mess and everyday soft toys in the corner.

Works well for us....plus it is very handy having most of the books out of little fingers reach for the constant mess and rips ;) and all those other things that are fun to play with and make a huge mess of, but you can monitor what gets played with when. IYKWIM

We use cane baskets here. The main toy basket doesn't have a lid, but it still looks all neat and means I can just throw things in there in a hurry, and he can pull them out without needing my help. Our other cane/wicker/seagrass baskets have lids.

If your kids aren't using all that stuff at once, could you be bothered keeping more stuff in their rooms and rotating?

We also have an IKEA Expedit, it's our bookshelf (with a few cane baskets in there hiding magazines and the iron. :p) - but a small one of those could be the go too - since it could be used as a workspace for drawing, trains, cars, and then things packed away into the cane baskets at the end - it wouldn't be your cheapest option, but it will always be there as storage/bookcase you can use.
I've considered that kind of thing as a clothes sorter even!

I was going to recommend IKEA too... specifically the Expedit bookcase. If you look in the seconds area of IKEA they often have them really cheap, with only minor damage (like the sort of damage that they will get after a toddler has had a go at them anyway!:rolleyes:). Might be worth checking. The seconds section is usually near the check-outs...

Roller storers, Baskets & plastic bucket/tub type things

When I was young ( alot younger...) I had a cool playmat that converted into a sac to store all my Lego & toys. Well I now have 2 kids of my own and one just getting into LEGO ( I have been waiting for this day since I have loved lego for ages) to "build with daddy". Anyway my wife complained how messy it was all over the floor so I researched the sac's online and found them, they are called gogosac and are just like the ones I had as a boy, I've now got 3 of them 1 for duplo for the younger one, one for LEGO for son & Dad and the last for general toys and taking away for when we go to in-laws.


great product thought you maybe interested