Playroom Update: Toy Storage

    A few months ago my husband and I decided on a budget to (I don't want to say "redo" because we never did it to begin with... so I'll go with "do") do our playroom. I got to planning, measuring, and shopping right away. We're going with a nautical theme for the room; aqua, navy, and white.

We had an awesome space in our basement but it wasn't functioning as well as it could.  The kids weren't spending a whole lot of time in there and since it was the ugliest, messiest room in the house, it wasn't exactly my favorite place to hang out either. When it was clean, that just meant all the toys were arranged on the floor or up against the wall. We still kept a lot of toys in the kid's bedrooms since there was no storage at all in the playroom.

Before

After scouring the internet (well, mostly Pinterest) for pictures of beautiful and functional playrooms, I decided what would work best for us, the space, and our budget was an Expedit shelving unit from Ikea. So, I know that using an Expedit in a playroom is no new thing. In fact, it seems to be in nearly every playroom on Pinterest, but that is just because it functions SOOO well for little ones and is a bargin at only $69.99! They can be used standing up vertically or laying horizontally which makes them very versatile. We bought two to put in the corner.






I also got 4 Knipsa Baskets from Ikea that fit perfectly in the spaces of the Expedit. These baskets are ultra sturdy and can fit a ton of toys! Perfect!

I wanted to label the baskets so my kids would be able to tell what is in each basket and to be able to help at clean up time. Since neither of our kids can read yet, the labels needed to have pictures instead of words. I found these mini chalkboards on Amazon at only $8 a dozen that work great. I wasn't a huge fan of the square hole that was in the middle of the baskets so I just hot glued the chalkboards right over it. There is still plenty of room at the top for your hand to pull the basket out.  I love that I can so easily change up what is on the label as my kid's toys change over time.









































For smaller toys like cars and blocks, I bought 4 white metal buckets also from Amazon. These were kind of a splurge even though they were the cheapest buckets I could find this size. to add to the nautical theme I painted navy blue stripes on each bucket.

I used painter's tape and first gave them a coat of white (to create a seal and limit the blue paint bleeding under the tape) then a few coats of navy blue.

I really am in love with these buckets! I find myself wanting to use buckets to store things all over the house now!  They are just so darn cute!

That's all the toy storage for now.  We still have a lot of work to do in this room and I'll be sharing all the updates as they come along!


-Chloe If you like my style be sure to check out my etsy shop!