As Emmett grows, and gets more active (seriously, it seems like he has more energy every day), we’ve been slowly accumulating toys. We live in a cozy (read small) home in the city, and our main living room also serves as Emmett’s playroom. When we originally designed the space, kids weren’t on the radar, and it was designed with our adult lifestyle in mind – at the time we maximized the space for lounging and entertaining.
If we’re being honest, these days with Emmett around, this is what our space ends up looking like most often… furniture pushed to the sides to create some play space in the middle, and a piiiiiiile of toys pushed up against one wall in an attempt to ‘organize’.
Needless to say, we (I?) reached a bit of a breaking point with the kid-clutter. I went on a mission to reorganize the existing space to better work as a triple-purpose space (living room, play space, and my work space).
So, how did we tackle the reorganization? We focused on a few key things:
- Steal a little bit of space from your ‘living’ area, and donate it to the ‘play space’. A foot or two of adult space sacrificed in most rooms won’t make or break your living area, and it helps create a reasonable amount of space for your little one to play.
- Use area rugs to delineate the different zones within your space. We swapped out our large area rug for a slightly smaller rug combo in our main living area. Doing that allowed us to add a small circular ‘play rug’ for Emmett’s play space.
- Baskets, baskets, and more baskets. We went a little basket crazy, and reorganized one of our built-in cabinets with them to organize all of Em’s toys. We also, found an adorable basket with a lid that sits outside the cabinet as a catch-all for any small toys or stragglers that need to be tucked away in a hurry. Cute baskets create a finished and modern look that’s consistent with the ‘adult’ parts of our space, but allows for easy clean up and storage of Em’s toys and bits! (NOTE: we also reorganized a large plastic storage tote with Em’s extra toys, and stored it in the basement. We plan to swap them out as he starts to tire of the toys he’s currently got – win win!)
All in all, we’re super happy with the reorganization. Em’s excited to explore his new area, and (at least for now) seems willing to help put everything away in the baskets!
And guys, we found everything we needed for the reorganization (rugs, pillows and baskets) from Canadian Tire’s CANVAS line! It kept everything stylish and affordable, and we LOVE that it’s both cute and family friendly!
Happy organizing!
NOTE: We were provided the items for the room reorganization at no cost from Canadian Tire… and let me tell you, we’ll be getting more CANVAS products for our spaces in the future – we love them!
