Our family has five children, and no playroom. We also do not keep toys in the kids’ bedroom. This means that our toys are stored in the living room. Toy organization in a living room is not always simple. But if you are strategic, you can still find a way to live in your living room!
How does one keep toys organized in the living room? Let me start with some candor. If it isn’t just after clean-up time, or before the day has begun, our living room looks like this:
This is the reality of using our living room as a playroom. It gets messy. We have to dodge Duplo as we walk from the bookshelf to the couch. There are almost always toys sitting on the coffee table. When we clean up, we find an assortment of toys under each couch.
An often-crazy living room is unavoidable when the living room is your playroom. But it doesn’t have to be constant chaos. By being careful about what you keep, and by being strategic about toy storage, you can create a multi-purpose living room that serves the whole family.
First things first…
Don’t try to keep too many toys in the living room.
Perhaps this goes without saying, but I’ll say it just in case. If you try to keep too many toys in your living room, it will be nearly impossible to have any maintainable organization. It may also be impossible to sit on your couch.
We have one cube shelf, with a total of six cubbies, dedicated to toys in our living room. One of the cubbies holds library books, and the rest hold toys. We also have a bin of musical instruments that lives next to the toy shelf.
Each family will have a “right” amount of toys. Our “right” amount changes depending on the season of life. My guideline is to have as many toys as we can clean up in about five minutes. Each evening, as part of our bedtime routine, we play two songs in the living room while we all work together to clean up. In case anyone wonders: Mama only helps clean up when at least one kid is cleaning up. And yes, the number of toys we can pick up in two songs varies widely depending on our moods.
Anything that does not get cleaned up goes out to the garage for the rest of the week. Which reminds me…
Use toy rotation!
For our family, the amount of toys we can happily manage on a daily basis is less than we own. Our kids play better with less toys (as do all kids!), and we all feel better mentally and emotionally when there aren’t too many things scattered on the floor. We also have a lot of reluctant toy picker-uppers, which means we can’t clean up that many toys in two songs.
But we have the luxury of storage space in the garage, and we have a good collection of toys that I think are worth having and using. (If you do not have the luxury of an extra space for toy rotation, or even if you do!, I’d encourage you to read this post about decluttering toys!) We have some shelves in the garage dedicated to overflow toys. We use toy rotation to keep things fresh, and to allow us to have maintainable toy organization in the living room.
(I hope this picture shows you that your storage does not have to be Pinterest-Pretty to be effective.)
Monday is New Toy Day at our house. I swap things from the living room for things in the garage, bringing in only what comfortably fits on the toy shelf, and what I think we can handle that week. After a week of lethargic cleaning, I bring in less toys. When we have guests, I typically add extra toys, knowing there will be more little hands needing something to hold.
The majority of our toys live in the garage, rotating in and out of the living room for their time to shine, but we also make use of our spare room for so many things spare.
Consider keeping some toys out of reach.
We keep games, puzzles, art supplies, and sensory play things in our spare room. Basically, anything we don’t want all the kids having access to all the time lives in the spare room. Generally speaking, these are things the kids need to ask to use, and the answer might be “not right now”, or “after you clean up _______”, or “Sure!”
Of course, you may not have a spare room, but you could use a cabinet, closet, garage, or dresser to store toys and activities that shouldn’t be out all the time.
For those things that are out all the time, I like to remember and embrace the reality that our toy shelf is a permanent fixture in our main room. Therefore, I prefer to organize them in an aesthetically pleasing way.
Choose toy organization suited to a living room.
Because our daily toys are stored in the living room, I prefer to organize them in an aesthetically pleasing way. Our white cube shelf matches our white trim, and doesn’t call a lot of attention to itself. We also use fabric baskets to store toys. These bins are practical, but also keep toys out of sight, and are somewhat decorative.
Our living room is a playroom, but it also a gathering place for company, a room for reading books, and a place for Mama and Papa to rest after bedtime. That being said, I like to have toys and organization that I don’t mind looking at throughout the day.
Look for a shelf or shelves that suit your taste, and don’t be afraid to veer from the typical playroom look.
And last, but not least…
Enjoy the sweetness of using your living room as a playroom.
Because we store our toys in the living room, I get to watch my kids play. Our kitchen is right off the living room, so when I am cooking, I can hear my kids divvying up roles when they play “Baby Nursery”. While I am sitting at the kitchen table, I might catch sight of four adventurers wearing backpacks and hats, making their way to the campsite in their bedroom.
When I feel irked at the sprawl of toys, I try to take a deep breath and enjoy the sights and sounds of play. I know one day I will be sitting at the kitchen table, fondly remembering the days of dress up adventure, wishing for one more noisy parade down the hall.