Results of toy re-org (lots of pictures!)

Since Lauren asked, I decided to take an after picture of my work today. No before picture as I didn't think about it but also - it would have been pretty embarrassing.

Our living room is huge (half of our downstairs) and we've dedicated about 1/3 to be the toddler playground. This is the half without shelving - there is a basket with stuffed animals and a magna-doodle, another basket with Rescue Hero's stuff, Cam's 'workbench', Maggie's music table, the indoor ride-on toys, and the train table. The buckets under the train table only hold train stuff right now! There are two empty bins because I have a bag of 'to discuss with Aaron' toys - mostly Mega-blocks stuff that my kids don't use.

I try to not let stuff pile up on that table, but it does become a catch-all at times. We also store a couple BIG trucks under the table. Right now, I have a wooden toy train that we got Cam for his 1st birthday and never uses. I put it in plain sight. If he uses it this week, it can stay, otherwise, it's out of here.

And this is facing the other half of the toddler play area - here are the the IKEA shelves all closed up:

And a close-up:

And what's inside (this half is the trucks, Mr Potato Head and music toys)

The other half is games, puzzles, books and awful electronic noise-making toys.


I'm excited to see that just with maybe an hour of work, I've got a LOT more space downstairs and things aren't STUFFED in places anymore.

And then - just so you don't think that we live in a pile of toys - the 'adult' 2/3's of the room (dog not so blurry in real life)

I know there are a lot of toys still OUT in the public space, but I'm usually able to maintain this level of neatness. So long as I have a plan where everything goes - I can keep it this way. I also have the advantage of my kids only truly PLAYING in the house on the weekends. In the morning, we are in a rush to get to daycare, and at night we go upstairs and play in their bedrooms.

I'll save the bedroom organization pictures for another day.