to want to set fire to all my DC toys in desperation?

[honeybooboo123]

Bought and moved into a bigger house with enough room for a playroom. Oh it will be so lovely I thought, somewhere for them to have all their toys downstairs and play like the little darlings they are. Put a play table in there and a bean bag.

Well the little sods move everything into the lounge, the playroom looks like a f*cken hurricane has gone through and I've lost the will to keep tidying it.

Decided to put an exercise bike, sofa and tv in there and try and buy some storage for DS toys- mostly cars, lego and other plastic shite and put most of it in his room.

Is a trip to IKEA needed for Trofast? Any other solutions?

We used to spend five minutes putting all the toys back in the playroom before sitting down to watch Charlie & Lola, or whatever the bedtime story was on CBeebies. So the 'grown up' sitting room was vaguely calm. I didn't care if the playroom was a tip as I closed the door.

I think we put a sofa/TV in the playroom when the youngest was about five, which meant less crap left the room in the first place.

There was still Lego everywhere until the youngest was about ten.

Can't you just all live in one room

What's wrong with watching tv in a room with toys in? Just buy a big basket and chuck everything in it before you sit down to watch tv if it offends you so much. Or just ask your kids to tidy up

the only time a 'playroom' is useful is when they are teenagers IME

Then they don't want to be near you and you can corrall them in there.

Little kids like to be near their parents usually.

Place marking for when I have time to reply!
Not with advice but with solidarity.

*Can't you just all live in one room confused

What's wrong with watching tv in a room with toys in? Just buy a big basket and chuck everything in it before you sit down to watch tv if it offends you so much. Or just ask your kids to tidy up hmm*

We do this, but it still leaves a room in the house which is basically used for nothing but throwing toys into, which seems a shame

Turn it into a study or dining room.

Study more useful when they are homeworking etc

Have never forgotten asking my eldest DS to tidy up his Sticklebrix because I kept treading on them. If he didn't tidy them, I was going to put them in the bin.

His reply (aged about four) was, 'if you throw them away, you are the one who will have to pay to replace them.' Little sod.

I did, in fact, bin the lot and he never noticed.

We tried the plastic shelving with pull out drawers but they couldnt take the weight, so went with stacking boxes and a dustpan.

We have trofast and the problem is the same as your expedit - if it’s in the cupboard it just gathers dust.

The stuff on top gets played with and on a daily basis DC4 (3) goes in and trashes the room

Not sure there is a solution - until they grow up and spend all there time flies to an Xbox which looks much nicer that lots of plastic.

I'm trying to imagine shoving lego pieces, playmobil sets and giant plastic castles into "one big basket". Why on earth would I create the hell that would unleash the next day when one stressed child is trying to dig up a teeny playmobil man to go into his police car and another is wailing his lego pieces are all mixed up with his sister's little pony accessories?

If it creates hell for them then they need to be the ones to put stuff away in their own baskets. They are 6 not 6 months.

we have a dining room...a few toys make it in there too. We also have a study, which luckily they don't seem to have discovered yet.

i spent two days sorting out all the bits from separate toys into separate boxes. Almost lost the will to live.

We have our kids' toys in a corner bit of our lounge/dining room (open plan). They have 2 medium height Trofast units and one very tall one all with different size tubs in (don't buy the huge ones as they're too heavy when full and fall on their feet when they pull them out!). We then stack books and folders of lego instructions on top of the lower units. We also have some expedit units with the fabric boxes, but those are just for puzzles, games, and art stuff as they again are very hard for smaller kids to manage once they get full.... We recently put a Trofast unit in DS1's room to store all the lego, as that was the bane of my life. It's still everywhere, but now is mostly confined to his and DS2's rooms.

Forgot to add that they (ages 4 and 7) tidy their lego away, the duplo, and books, colouring etc, but most of the other stuff gets tidied away by me unless I feel like nagging at them. I just shove it in the boxes, and they know what's in each box so they still play with it all...

We don't have a playroom - and we're open plan so it doesn't take long for "stuff" to get on my nerves. So we've had a rule of only one big thing out at a time, since DC were tiny. They are fully indoctrinated now We also all join in a mad 5 minute clear up before bed, generally yelling the much-murdered song "we like to move it move it" as they clatter stuff away. They mainly play in the living room because they want an audience company, and that's fine.

This thread may have inspired me to have a quick whizz through the bedroom toy cupboards with a black bag though

What we have done is add ikea trofast storage to 3 rooms - kids bedroom, playroom and dining room. The trofast boxes are labelled - cars, trains, duplo, etc

This allows easy tidy up and enables them to move toys around. So cars are downstairs one day and upstairs the next. They are only allowed as many toys as we have storage for. If it does not fit in the trofast, it goes into loft/charity shop.

Its working so far!

We're in the process of building a conservatory which I intend to be a play room. I'm planning on lots of kallax storage and a tv in there. I figure I'll just sit in there with him while he plays and the lounge will be our grown up space once ds is in bed. Hopefully this works out and I don't end up with 2 rooms full of plastic tat!

We went with a 'family room' for us all to hang out in during the day so comfy for mum and dad too with big sofa and having the other big down stairs room as a 'sitting room' for evening times and guests without children.