How We Organize Our Small Playroom |

a peek into our little not-so-perfect playroom

This playroom was the first room we set up in our new house. I couldn’t wait to create a welcoming space for our little men. Here is a mini virtual tour:

I will start in the left corner and move around the room. I was excited to have a place to hang these picture ledges that double as book display shelves in our new home! I had wanted some of these ever since I planned our first boy’s nursery almost 4 years ago. They work well, can hold quite a few books and are great for small children as 1) they can see all of the books and 2) when they pull one book off it doesn’t make all of the other books fall off like the do with a traditional bookshelf.

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(this picture was taken on a diff day, aka: different books since we rotate them often- I love books and we have them in every room in our house). These READ letters are from At Home. The picture ledges are from IKEA. You can find them here. And here is a list of some of our favorite gospel-centred books for littles.

the Be Brave sign is from Hobby Lobby as is the arrow which holds their super hero attire. I found these capes and masks for a great deal on amazon, here. The boys also love their buzz lightyear helmet. You can find it here

This is a tad bit messier than I planned for taking pictures, but with 3 boys under 4, let’s be honest, this room is hardly ever picture-perfect.

We usually keep the train table, one of our most used gifts, in the corner as well, though currently it is downstairs in our living room. It is an Imaginarium brand table, which sadly is from the out of business Toys R Us. However, I have noticed several for sale on Facebook Marketplace. Side note: their company has amazing customer service. A year ago or so, C left his water cup on the table. It leaked all over and created a pool of water I didn’t notice for several hours. It ruined the picture on top of the table. I called, and they ended up sending us a brand new top for free! I have seen a very similar one on amazon: you can find it here

The cube book shelf is from Walmart. They have similar ones from IKEA, but I really wanted this shade of faux-wood as in our old home it was in the front room which was also our dining room , and I wanted it to match our furniture. This was the only one I could find 3 years ago when I was looking. Now they have similar ones at Target , as well. But, I have no complaints. It has held up well for us.

The wooden wicker baskets and striped cube containers are also from Walmart. I originally bought two different kinds to bring home and compare in order to choose one, and then I just decided to keep them both. I have thought about getting cubes for all 8 sections, but some of our larger trucks and toys do better to just sit on the shelf.

I made the artwork display with my MOPS group a couple of years ago. It is a piece of wood that we painted and then glued clothes pins to.

To the right of the cube shelf we have another arrow hanging up (also from Hobby Lobby) for some dress up clothes (the Melissa and Doug doctor set, construction worker, firehat, etc).

The kitchen in the corner is yet another IKEA find. It was a present for C for Christmas when he turned 1, and it has gotten a fair amount of use over the last few years. I have hopes of staining it one day to match the other furniture like I did with the boys’ little play table.

You can find the educational rug here. In our old house, I had one of those foam letter puzzle mats, but as they got older they would tear it a part often. I like this one because I can play games with it (step on the star!, I spy a W, etc) while we are just playing upstairs. One day, when the kids get older I will get a rug that goes more with the color scheme.

I actually painted these curtains! I originally had them hanging in our dining room in our old house, but thought they looked better here when we moved. For years, I had big dreams of long (floor to ceiling) striped curtains, but had no idea how expense they were, so I did a little experiment and painted them like you would wall. They are definitely not perfect, but I like the way they turned out.

If you’re curious as to how I painted the curtains:

I was about 37 weeks pregnant with baby #2 when I did this, so it was a little more challenging than I anticipated. The hardest part was finding a place large enough to lay out the curtains. I also only had limited time (nap time or bed time) to paint since I didn’t want our 17 month old to walk around on them while they were drying.

I purchased the RITVA curtains from IKEA here (the longest pair are $39.99)

I laid out the curtain panels in the only stretch of our home long enough (they are 118″ long), and then used green Frog Tape to tape of the sections after measuring and marking on each side. I basically followed this tutorial from Young House Love blog on painting their wall in horizontal stripes like my friend helped me do in C’s nursery years ago.

I used a small paint roller and a flat gray latex paint from Lowe’s (I got their zero VOC brand) to paint the fabric. I probably should have done two coats. They did leak through some, so I recommend laying something under them if you choose to do this. Warning: they looked great when they were laying on the floor. But as soon as we hung them up and the sun shined through, you could see every place where the paint did not get absorbed equally. So in hindsight, I would definitely recommend painting each stripe two or three times (letting it dry between each coat). I just didn’t have the time. I made up for this by buying some black out material from Joann’s and sewing it on the back of the curtains (I just sewed a straight line across the top). This effectively hides the places that are not perfect, and hopefully helps a little on our electric bill.

The cube storage shelf is again, Better Home and Gardens brand from Walmart. I always have intended to sew a pillow cushion for the top to create a window seat. I may do that one day, but for now, the boys love having the top to push their cars, trucks and trains along. It also often holds our larger toys.

Toy Rotation

We try to rotate our toys every few months or so. We keep several big black trash bags (classy, I know) full of them in the attic. When we bring the toys down, the boys always are so excited and usually think they are new. They also make bags especially for this, but we just haven’t made it a priority to buy some.

you can throw some toys in here and put them in your attic until it’s time to rotate them again

This tee pee was a present for Christmas for the boys a couple years ago. I chose this particular one because it is quite large (I can fit in it) and it has a bottom, which I liked in case we ever wanted to use it outside. It also makes it easy to fold up and store all the stuff (pillows, rug, etc) inside. You can find it here. I sewed the little pennant banner to drape along the top.

time is so cruel. What happened to my 2 year old and 9 month old?

Everyone knows a good tee pee needs some lights. We got them here..

We got the PLAY letters from Hobby Lobby, the alphabet sign from Home Goods, and I printed a couple canvas pictures of the boys to finish the wall. I can’t believe these are from almost 2 years ago now. I need to get new ones printed and figure out how to arrange 3 boys! (poor baby E needs to be represented)

I purchased a cheap 2 pack of pillows from Home Goods and then bought these gray arrow covers here here.

And, after so much research (I frustrate myself how hard it is for me to make choices, even small one), I got the fur rug here (another surprising Home Depot find, like our kitchen table!)

I got these little chalkboard tags from Michaels and wrote the labels of the toys so we can be organized in our cleaning. I have always meant to go back and add laminated pictures of the toys so that the boys can clearly see what goes where even though they cannot read yet. Although even without picture labels, they have a pretty good memory about which toys go where.

Toy Organization

When we first got all of the bins, I had no idea what to label them (and again, I still have plans of going back and putting pictures alongside the words). These are our current labels:

trains
cars
blocks
balls
little people/animals/figurines
baby toys
puzzles
music toys

And one day we will change out that ugly old white fan. Oh, the joys of home ownership and the never ending to-do list. Edit: I have since updated this system greatly! Our boys are now 3,5,7&8 and we use baskets with visual labels I designed here: Etsy Toy Visual Toy Labels here

I spy 2 little boys hanging out in their play space.

In the next month or so, I hope to get a post up on some of our favorite toys! I know when I was a new mom, I had no idea what toys to ask for when sweet family members asked what they could buy for our son.

I will say, I love this room. It makes me smile every time we walk up stairs, but the boys don’t spend a ton of time up here. Maybe it’s because of their ages, but they prefer to play downstairs right now in the main family room. Thus, we still have toys all over our home, and sometimes it drives me a little crazy (but one day we will miss these scattered toys, right, Mamas?!). I did recently purchase another cube storage shelf, this time from Target, to put in the small closet we have downstairs as a way to store some of our toys. We keep cars, trains, books, some building toys (magna tiles, blocks, waffle blocks, tinker toys), and their ride on toys (for getting out all of that energy on long summer days when it is too hot to play outside) downstairs.

the dimensions of this one
were just right. I shared this on my stories on Instagram a couple months ago. I post tips there daily, as posting on instagram takes a lot less time than writing a blog post. I also share a lot of just real life.

I have debated about changing our downstairs study into a play area instead, but it is nice to have a change of scenery on the long days at home when we don’t have any activities or errands to run, and I can say let’s go play upstairs! I also like that we have a study area for all of our books, crafts and paper work that I can shut behind closed doors. What do you guys prefer for little kids (3 and under?): upstairs or downstairs play areas?

Thanks for taking our little tour. When I bought all of the things to organize our toys 3 years ago, there weren’t quite as many options as there are today, but I am still thankful for our frugal storage cubes that have served us well and helped to keep me sane.