Sooner or later, every parent faces a pressing question: where to put these huge piles of children's toys scattered across all horizontal and vertical surfaces of the house?
The option of not buying new ones is so unrealistic that we won’t even offer it. Some affectionately call the room “the sonny room” and drop in there once a week to clean up the mess. The problem of storing children's things in one-room apartments is especially pressing, when, in addition to the child, parents should be able to walk across the floor in any direction.
The most competent way to clear space is to organize and systematize it.
We, in turn, will show you a few things that will help you first involve your child in the process of cleaning up toys and then instill in him the desire to cope with this task on his own.
How to organize toy storage in a children's room: 25 ideas
Organizing the storage of toys in a children's room is not as hard a science as it might seem at first glance. To save space, just study 7 rules and then choose the right idea - and you will always know exactly where to put everything that strains your eyes. Watch, read, get inspired, and may order come to your home.
Slingo shelves
For young children, books with illustrated fairy tales are no less important than toys. But over time, there are so many books in the nursery that a small shelf for storing them becomes insufficient. In this case, sling shelves will come to the rescue - such a wall-mounted bookhouse will not take up much space and can be easily installed at a height convenient for the baby. In addition, several pockets of the sling shelves can be used for other purposes and hide your favorite toys in them.
Photo: homebnc.com
Photo: zulily.com
How to organize storage?
Today, it is rare that a child knows what a shortage of toys is. He, like his parents, is more likely to face an overabundance. You can often see mountains of construction sets, dolls, and cars that literally filled the entire house. It begins to seem that children and order are incompatible. Not at all. Just 7 rules for organizing toy storage can radically change the situation.
- Your own corner. If a child has his own properly organized place to play, the likelihood of toys being stolen throughout the house will be reduced. The children's space must have: a table or desk with drawers and shelves for storing creative supplies, a chair, ottoman, a chest of drawers or a basket for toys, a soft rug for playing on the floor. You can paint the wall with chalkboard effect paint, and hang a bucket of crayons and a sponge on a hook next to it.
- Toy storage space. You can't put toys anywhere. Each item must have its own place. It is optimal to mark the drawers with pictures or inscriptions, for example: “For construction sets”, “For balls”, “For cars”. Such a system will help not only a child, but also an adult to quickly navigate when cleaning.
- The priority is quantity, not size. When choosing between one large storage container and many small ones, it is better to give preference to the second option. When toys are sorted rather than piled up, they are easier to put in and take out.
- Free access and ease of use. It is very important that the child can pick up the toy independently. To do this, shelves or chests of drawers should be no taller than his height. It is better to place frequently used toys on open shelves so as not to tempt the baby to empty the entire drawer. But it is better to store books and toys with small parts higher up, on a hanging shelf that a child cannot climb onto.
- Attractive view. Multi-colored shelves and drawers have a positive effect on the psycho-emotional state of the child. Psychologists especially highlight the color yellow, which supposedly encourages children to have order and calm behavior.
- Safe and easy to clean. It is very important to keep the children's room clean. Therefore, you need to organize the storage location so that as little dust settles on the toys as possible, and all containers and drawers are easy to wash. In addition, they must be safe for the child: smooth, low, and made of non-toxic materials.
- More doesn't mean better. We are talking about toys. It's much easier to keep things clean if there's not much to throw around. And it’s easier for a child to choose what to play with from 5-7 toys than from 50. Everything else can be put in a distant drawer and offered to the baby something new once a week.
After getting acquainted with the principles of organizing toy storage, you can safely move on to choosing places. This could be baskets, drawers, an organizer or special furniture. Let's take a look at the best storage ideas.
Plastic containers
They come in all sorts of colors and shapes. Most often, people choose transparent models with wheels so that they can see what has already been put there and make them easy to move.
Opaque low containers with a lid fit perfectly under a child's bed and are easy to pull out and push back in.
Pay attention to the fact that the size of plastic containers usually does not include a centimeter or two, which is occupied by wheels. So you should choose containers that are not flush against the bottom of the crib, but with a gap of at least a couple of centimeters.
You can also take several containers and place them in a kind of wooden shelf without doors, for example, in the form of a ladder. Children will be interested in climbing the new slide and putting their treasures in their places. The advantage of this method is that dust will not accumulate on the toys and, as a result, they can be washed less often.
Plastic containers do not have to be plain. You can choose colors and patterns to match the interior of the children's room, or simply the color of the curtains, the main thing is that they fit organically into the surrounding space.
For example, if a girl’s room is already decorated in light purple tones, then white, purple, pink and transparent containers of the required sizes will be ideal.
If the room is decorated in a neutral style, you can give your child a simple transparent container and a pack of stickers, and the child will be happy to decorate it himself.
Idea for unwanted toys
Also, plastic opaque containers can be placed under the bathtub or on the closet, and toys that are not particularly needed at the moment can be placed there.
How do you know what to temporarily hide under the bathroom? These can be any plastic construction sets, toys that have already been given by caring relatives, but they are not suitable for your baby’s age, toys that are waiting for a verdict on whether to give them away or not.
Now there are containers with hermetically sealed lids, so that mold and excess moisture cannot reach the toys and they, safe and sound, will wait for their finest hour. If the toys lie there for six months and no one remembers them or wants to play with them, you can give some of them to friends, neighbors with newborns, or to a shelter.
Baskets for toys
The very first idea that comes to mind is to store toys in a special basket. As a rule, it is a wire base on which fabric is stretched. Baskets for toys can be folded and put away when not needed, they can be washed. In addition, despite the impressive volume, it is easy for a child to look for the right thing in them. The edges of the baskets are soft, bend under weight, and it is impossible to get hurt or hit on them.
But there are also disadvantages. It is difficult to find a small item in bulky bags. They are not suitable for storing Lego construction sets, various animals, figurines, etc. But toy baskets are great for storing balls, soft bears, large cars and dolls. But these three-tier options help to free up space in the house to the maximum:
Additional chests of drawers
If your budget is limited or buying an entire nursery is simply not part of your plans, you can limit yourself to purchasing individual chests of drawers. There are a lot of inexpensive but attractive options in the IKEA store:
By the way, it is not at all necessary to buy a chest of drawers in the children's department. You can purchase classic furniture, and then decorate it yourself with children’s self-adhesive cars or princesses. When the child grows up, they can be removed.
Even when planning a child, it is important to think about organizing space in the nursery. It is better to initially purchase furniture with drawers: a table, a desk, a crib.
Organizers
Everyone should have such a thing at home. An organizer is a compact device in which you can store a wide variety of small things. For example, Hot Wheels cars, Lego figures, Kinder Surprise, magnetic alphabet, pencils, pens, brushes, etc.
There are quite a few models of organizers:
- canvas with pockets;
- chests;
- drawers with departments;
- plastic containers with compartments.
They are often made of thick material or silicone, which makes cleaning easier. Some organizers are convenient to hang on a wall or door - this allows you to use the space of the room to the maximum.
Do it yourself
If parents have enough free time and want to do something for the child with their own hands, you can adopt one of the following ideas:
To make homemade storage devices you can also use:
- laundry baskets;
- wooden fruit boxes;
- carton boxes;
- food trays;
- pet carrier;
- plastic bottles.
To add attractiveness to them, it is enough to apply a child’s drawing with acrylic paints or paste them with self-adhesive pictures. You can also sew or knit covers for the drawers. Ideas made using the patchwork technique look especially colorful.
DIY toy boxes
Looking at the not childish prices for cute wicker or plastic baskets in stores, you think that the idea of making colored toy boxes with your own hands is not so bad. You will need cardboard boxes made of thick (not corrugated) cardboard, most likely from household appliances. You can try your luck with your friends: many manufacturers provide warranty repairs only if the packaging is present. So people keep the boxes. The warranty period has long passed, and they forgot to throw away the packaging. These boxes are the best option for children.
Another option is to ask in department stores. They also often receive goods in hard packaging. For example, diapers, wipes, etc. come in these.
Cover with paper
Cut off the lid from the found boxes. We cut holes-handles in the side walls (narrow). We seal all joints from the inside with tape.
Cut off the lid of the box and make holes in the sides for handles
Take colorful paper. The wrapping paper used to wrap gifts is perfect. It is dense, there are a large number of different patterns. You can also use scrapbooking paper. If the trim is made of paper of different colors, we cut it into strips of equal width; if we paste it with one pattern, we measure the strip along the height of the box.
Glue the paper
We take glue (PVA), brush the surface of the box and start gluing it from the corner. We try to glue without bubbles, smoothing the paper gradually, from edge to edge. We place the next sheet with a slight overhang, not the previous one. Continue this way until we have covered all the surfaces.
We design handles
After looking at the light, we cut out the handles with scissors. To make the edge more neat, glue the sections of the handle with a thin strip of paper. We also decorate the top cut with a stripe.
Ready-made homemade toy box
We cover it with fabric
In this case, all corners of the box can be taped on both sides - it will last longer. Next, we take the fabric and cut out two sets of blanks to fit the box. One is strictly in size, plus a seam allowance, the second is 1 cm smaller and also with an allowance. Add 0.5-1 cm to the seams on each side. You can cut the workpiece immediately in the form of a cross, but this way the fabric consumption is greater - it is more economical in separate pieces.
We cut out a double set of blanks from the fabric and sew them together
We first sew the parts together in the form of a cross, then make a bag from the blank. Let's try it on the box. We stretch one (the larger one) from the outside, and straighten the second one from the inside.
Fitting
Now we take universal glue and glue the fabric around the perimeter of the bottom, inside and out. Then we glue it in the corners. This way the fabric will not move.
Glue the fabric along the edges of the box
We fold the edges of both bags inward and trim the box around the perimeter by hand.
We trim the top of the toy box, cut out the handles
Using scissors, cut through the handles. Just don't cut out large pieces. You need to leave about 1 cm of “extra” fabric. We wrap it inside, hemming the handle.
Hemmed handle
Having decorated the handles, we get a ready-made box for storing toys.
The box is ready
How to teach a child to have order?
Everyone knows that maintaining cleanliness and order must be taught from childhood. However, this does not mean that you can limit yourself to the phrase: “Put away your toys.” The baby might be happy to put it away, but often doesn’t know where to put everything and how. In addition, his mental capabilities do not allow him to concentrate on one task for a long time. Therefore, until about 10 years of age, the lion's share of cleaning falls on the shoulders of parents, whether they want it or not.
How, then, to teach a child to order? The answer is to clean with him, to set an example. Mom folds dolls, and daughter folds cubes. You can even have a competition and race to clean up. This way the task will be completed quickly, easily and positively, and the desire for order will be instilled painlessly.
Once you have ideas for storing toys, you need to take a fresh look at the room and understand which ones will suit you personally. What can be changed or improved? Do you have the money or free time to make your own organizers? Having made a choice, you can move from theory to practice. Don’t forget to go through the toys, throw out the broken ones, and give away or sell the outdated ones. Let each of them take its place, then order and calm will come to the house, and cleaning will no longer be a burden.
Toys for children from 0 to 3 years old
The first age we will consider is from birth to 3 years. As soon as your baby has already begun to move along the walls or walk on his own, you should have your baby’s first work place - a children’s table and chair. We will look at recommendations for choosing furniture for a nursery in detail in another article.
Closed toy storage system
The storage system in the room should be closed. Why do we close all the closets at home?
Everyone is now obsessed with the early development of children - they spend a huge amount of money on developmental courses, classes with tutors, and clubs. But when it comes to home, everything is exactly the opposite.
At home you can give good stimulation to your child's intellect. Instead, parents create obstacles to the natural development of the baby.
When a baby is just born, all his driving force is aimed at moving and exploring the world - he learns to sit down, walk, and control his body.
But parents begin to slow down the driving force of the baby. It would seem that they want to develop and interest the baby by laying out in front of him all the educational games that are in the house. But in this way they extinguish the child’s motivation to move. He doesn’t have to do anything - they got everything for him, they put everything in front of him, and they also played for him. And by the age when a baby might be interested in these toys, in the end he no longer plays with them. He simply lost interest in them.
To encourage your child to move and develop naturally, you must create an environment for movement at home. For one-year-old children, there is nothing more interesting than opening cabinets, rummaging around and getting something out. For them it is a pleasure to engage in the search movement. But instead, mothers are actively figuring out how to say the word “impossible” so that the child does not open the closet.
Children's world in a one-room apartment
In a one-room apartment, everything needs to be thought out in advance, taking into account the possible addition to the family. What should a room for parents and a child look like so that everyone feels comfortable in it? This is a question many parents ask. Let's try to find interesting ways to solve this problem.
Few families begin their life's journey right away in a spacious apartment with a separate children's room. Ideally, each child should have his own separate room, or at least a room that is intended for 2 to 3 children and is located separately from the room where the parents live. However, this is not always possible. In such cases, how can everyone fit in a limited area and use the space most efficiently?
Where to store toys: top 10 useful ideas
From early childhood I remember that I perceived my parents’ request to tidy up the room and put away the toys as punishment. Therefore, I always did it reluctantly. Well, really, what could be more boring than turning your colorful and cheerful children's world into the most ordinary, unremarkable room? Fortunately, designers have now come up with a lot of original ideas for storing toys, so the cleaning process becomes quick and fun.
Space under the bed
Perhaps this is one of the most practical ways to store toys, which saves space in small rooms and effectively uses a seemingly useless area of the interior.
We advise you to take a closer look at the beds with large drawers from the Orbita-Furniture store. Here you can purchase practical and functional furniture of the company’s own production at reasonable prices.
Bed “Funky Kids-8” at Orbita-Furniture, from RUB 15,412, order
Bed “ABC Furniture” at “Orbita-Mebel”, from RUB 9,510, order
Boxes on wheels
This option for storing toys, although not compact, is very convenient: it can be easily moved from place to place, and this can be done with a slight movement of the foot, or hidden under the bed. And how interesting it will be for a child to take his pets for a ride around the room or go for a ride himself! So both you and your baby will enjoy the joy of using the mobile box.
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Photo: nymag.com
