To wonder if I can pull off a 'disappearing playroom'?

[VeniceQueen2004]

It's probably just the lockdown crafty competitiveness and Pinterest overdose talking, but I've got this crazy idea...

We live in a terraced house with quite high ceilings but a very small yard. I have an active three year old, and I am dreadful for buying/borrowing things for her so the play room (also our main lounging space) is very crowded with her toys etc.

I remember a while ago seeing this:

basically its a Dutch company who designed a 'dissappearing office' - basically, all the desks etc were on cables which winched up into the ceiling space at 5pm to encourage better work/life balance.

I'm wondering if there's any way I could do this in the playroom - i.e. have some things winched up into the ceiling except when in use? i'm thinking maybe a hammock (she loves them) and/or a rope ladder/some sort of light climbing apparatus as she's well into climbing at the moment and my sofa can''t take any more! So nothing heavy like a rocking horse or something that might crash down onto our heads unexpectedly

Give it to me straight Mumsnet, am I batshit?

You could build a climbing wall like this for the garden.The hand holds are quite cheap.
todayshomeowner.com/video/build-it-a-cargo-net-climbing-wall-for-the-kids/

For the amount of money you'd spend doing this, you could probably buy another TV and something to put it on, or a smaller one for the playroom and move the main TV to your nice sitting room.

@hadtojoin that's brill but not enough space in the yard - it's literally a handkerchief 😣 thought about screwing some of those climbing rocks straight onto the wall but the only clear wall space we have goes down steps so couldn't put a crash mat down... Maybe when she's bigger and falling on her arse is less likely to necessitate a trip to A&E!

Just so we’re clear - you’re phobic about tellies on the wall but fine with tables on the ceiling?

Got it.

www.amazon.co.uk/Gorilla-Gym-Plastic-Climbing-Swinging/dp/B00FM62YD8/ref=asc_df_B00FM62YD8/?hvlocphy=9046582&linkCode=df0&hvptwo&psc=1&hvnetw=g&hvadid=310620100076&hvpone&hvlocint&hvpos&hvdev=c&hvdvcmdl&hvqmt&tag=mumsnetforu03-21&hvtargid=pla-445024147643&hvrand=4323057526669885957

Would this be any use OP? It connects to the door but can be dismantled - a woman at work has one and she swears by it during winter when her kids can't go to the park as often!

Go to www.pictureframe.tv and look at their wall mounted TV system which is disguised as a mirror or art work when not in use.
Not cheap but less expensive, I would think, than putting all your furniture on wires to hoist it up to the ceiling! (and, how do they plug those computers in on that link you showed @VeniceQueen2004?).

I think you just have to live with it, if you have kids! We had years where the sitting room was partitioned off by increasingly tricky contraptions of stair gates and play pen sides, so we had the TV and stuff, and the logburner one side and the children the other. We lived through the playmats, bouncers, walker chairs, etc and then the huge toys, the playsets, marble runs, castles and forts...... basically we just had chairs in amongst it all and watched telly like that when they went to bed.

Now pre-teens, most of their stuff fits in drawers or can be hidden behind the sofa - except the myriad of electronic gadgets and leads which take up slightly less room but gather far more dust! But I'll be sad when they aren't here at all - so I just put up with it on the basis that when it's gone, so will they be.......

Can't believe you would rather winch toys to the ceiling than hang a telly on the wall.

@fluffygreenmonsterhoody

😂😂😂

@VeniceQueen2004 I know this doesn't quite address the disappearing toys idea - the laundry airer @sleeping mammoth is brilliant - but I was one of five children, and when my working mother was driven mad by the chaos of toys, she created a weekly toy library system. All the toys were in a locked cupboard and each Saturday we could choose five for the week. It made every toy suddenly desirable and Saturday mornings were thrilling - I can still remember the excitement. Lasted a couple of years.

What if your daughter got accidentally winched up to the ceiling too? that sounds amazing for both parent and child.

You can put a swing on the gate thing in the yard tho. We had one when we were kids, it was fab

Get a projector for your other room and get rid of TV? I like the ivar ikea storage, it's wooden but seems easy to paint.

My Dh was a stay at home dad, he made up crates with a variety of stuff and similar to cloudrunner, he rotated the crates every week or more often if it was really poor weather and they were bored. Made the toys much more interesting and 3 quarters of them were in the garage at any one time.

They had books and some soft toys in their bedrooms and a crate at a time downstairs.

To be fair, the toys weren't out all day either. There was book time, tv time, toy time, puzzle and game time, outdoor time etc just to break up the day.

I'd love to say that that continued and they are well organised teen adults but sadly not... They went to school, DH went to work and chaos reigned.

Spend your ceiling hoist budget on therapy to recover from your wall mounted tv phobia. And then buy a second tv for all the Peppa Pig.

If you do go down the airer route, this is the one we have (for our clothes, not toys). Its a flat one so it's easier to stack stuff on and you can have the lathes either flat or upright meaning you could put the middle 5 flat and the two end ones tipped up to give a lip to stop stuff sliding off. Make sure it's screwed into the joists.

www.castinstyle.co.uk/product.php/1283/seven-lath-gismo-kitchen-maid-reg-clothes-dryer

i've seen things to hoise up playtables with toy railways etc on, so you could do that.
or build a series of steps going up around the room, like a cat run, with a loft play space.(JK)

I get the tv phobia - it can look quite tacky. However, the fact you have a cosy room with nice sofas yet the lack of tv means no one actually wants to be in there - I mean what a waste of a room? What's the point of it?

In somewhat similar circumstances I caved and mounted a tv to the wall - so glad I did! It's like a calm oasis walking in to that clean, tidy, non-sticky room in the evening. Light a few candles in there. Instant good mood. Just sorry now I never thought of a projector like pp said, that would have been so much better... hopefully the tv breaks soon

@totallyoverthisbullshit another brilliant idea!! 👍

Oh god that doorframe gym is incredible.

OP two ideas:

For a pikler triangle check out homefordreams on Etsy. They do bigger, cheaper versions that I think will last longer with a three year old. We replaced our triclimb with one and it's great.

We have a kallax (a four by four one) but like you I find it aesthetically displeasing. Using some stick on led strip lighting to backlight it and these crates have improved it no end: thismodernlife.co.uk/collections/all/products/storage-folding-crate-midi-various-colours

(Just to be clear obviously my house looks fuck all like that photo. Mine looks like I've given up on life, but bought some pretty coloured crates in a vain attempt to salvage things)

@Wingedharpy ooooh see that's perfect. When I'm rich!

@Colom you're quite right of course it is. A waste. We do sit in their sometimes to play Scrabble or do the crossword or read and feel very grown up and sophisticated, but let's be honest that's maybe 10% of our evenings, and the rest are spent vegetating 😛

Projector is a genius idea! We have pictures on every wall at the mo but I suppose if I draped an ironed sheet on one at TV time that would do the job...

*there not their! FFA

@Lotsofpots 🤣 I feel you!! Very pretty crates though. I am such a victim of Pinterest, I see things and go "oooh isn't that nice, I bet I could do that!" and am eternally disappointed with the results 😆 this has been heavily accentuated during lockdown with all the crafting with the kids stuff everyone's doing... But I'm pretty bad on home decor porn too!