Now that little man is getting into everything, that means nothing is off limits. Well, things are off limits, and he know they are, but he does it anyway, looks back at me, and smiles. We are going to have some interesting teen years ahead of us. One of the things I got rid of were the frames that I had sitting on a couple of shelves at the bottom of our entertaiment center. I didn't want him knocking them over and having glass break or something. Then, I got rid of the baskets full of toys on the bottom two shelves because they were scratchy and any time he pulled them out he would either scratch himself or the entertainment center. Not a good situation overall, so the shelves have sat empty for a few months. Does it look great? Not really. Does it bug me that there is all this open space with nothing but strewn about cars and such? Yes. And these before pictures are no joke of what our living room looked like on a normal basis. Anyone who has seen our house before I have the chance to shovel everything off to the side can vouch for it. I'm not ashamed cause I have a child and anyone who has had one knows that as soon as you put something away, it will get dumped back out again.
Time to take action. I was thinking what in the hurrl could I put there that would look nice but also provide some sort of function for all the toy chaos we have going on in this house. It took me awhile, but one day last week, it hit me. What about those soft baskets that he has in his room that we used for his toy storage in there? I grabbed a couple to test them out and they couldn't have looked more perfect. I sent a text to Scott with the picture because I was so excited. So, we went to Target this past weekend to buy them, and on Sunday night, I got to organizing!
I went with two different colors to make it not seem so blah and to give that area a little interest. It adds some style as well as function for the craziness that has overtaken what used to be our living room. Of course, I organized each of the storage bins by type of toy. Cars in one, stuffed animals in another, small bulky ones in another one. I also made a point to put the heavier bins at the bottom so he wouldn't reach out and have one fall on him. I also split his "play books" into two bins due to the fact that they are heavy in themselves. You can't even tell there are toys in any of those! They could be filled with diamonds or small kittens. And there might be an empty one or two for growth, you would never know!
To me, it looks awesome. At the end of the day, I can just throw all of the smaller toys in the bins. Organized of course. Now I have some sort of inner peace when I look at the living room. And, it also keeps him from having ALL of the toys out at once just staring at him all the time. It gives him more variety throughout the day where he may not see a certain toy for a few days and it makes it interesting to him again. Giving the toys some flavor. We still have our bigger storage ottoman in the corner to keep him from the cords back there (Well, for the most part. He has managed to get back there a couple of times) and for some of the bigger toys that won't fit. Some toys that are larger do still have to sit out, but it is a major improvement.
Check out the rug we had gotten him from Ikea when we went there in July. He loves playing on it with his cars and I think it will get more and more use as he gets older. My mom has a similar one at her house that my nephew Sam plays with for hours, so I knew it would be a great investment when I got it! It looks great in our living room, too! ;) It's smaller, so I can easily store it away when we have our fancy parties with the fancy people that we know.
Fun little project and not sure why I didn't think of this sooner, but I am glad I did. So...so...happy!
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