If your home looks like a showhome, where do you keep all the toys etc?

[phoenixflower]

Leding on from my showhome kitchen thread, where a number of my friends ( and a whole load of MNetters too) seem to have showhome style kitchens. < jelous >.

If the rest of your house is like this also, where do you keep all your stuff? Toys, etc?

Do you have clutter anywhere? If not, how do you deal with it?!

< waits for tips on how to make my house look like a showhome and be the perfect housewife".

Leading *

i have worked in several beautiful show homes...

i think the answer is you NEED a playroom, so all the toys can be in there... lots of trofast and colourful boxes etc etc, and units and side boards to store toys and games beutifully...

AND children need nice big bedrooms with room for toys to be tidied away neetly

then the toys dont get in the way in the sitting room, or its much easier to apply the one or 2 things out at once rule, when toys are allowed to be out in the playroom

Storage boxes in my Ds's bedroom.

They get brought out (one box at a time) in the morning then after dinner Ds and I go around, chuck all the toys back in the box and push it back into his bedroom.

Unfortunately I don't have a "Playroom" but I can still sit down in the evenings in a nice clean living room without having to look at friggin toys everywhere.

So if you live in a small city flat with a child who loves toy animals and just got his first Playmobil ... then what?

DDs have big built in wardrobes - big enough for toys, clothes and for playing in. Rooms are mostly tidy, open the cupboards and you'll find the mess.

Downstairs toys are behind the sofa. Look behind the sofa and you'll find the mess.

We are surface tidy and can quickly give the appearance of order and serenity. It's false though

Loads of cupboards mean a tidy house [please never open the cupboards in my house]

Cupboards, with shelves with boxes on. As we renovated our house we designed all the storage space for what we actually had.

But DS has no interest in toys since he got rid of Thomas Railway when he was five.

I have a good cleanse regularly, I also request that our children do not receive stupid amounts of toys at Christmas/birthdays. Luckily we dont go mad on buying for them, just a couple of nice toys but avoid those playsets that need to be keep together. I use old tuperware for any sets that are played with.

I have been to so many houses where the amount of toys is absolutely obscene!

In the living room we have a huge log basket. Those cheap plastic boxes from Ikea in the bedroom. Use the space under the bed too.

Toys that are a really for when older I keep in attic as I hate tiny lego especially is a baby crawling around.

But to be honest a showroom home isnt a happy home, a child should be able to play without stress of worry if they are being messy so what! Better to accept that the house is a bit messy (but clean) full of happy unstressed children for a few years.

Our house looks tidy pretty much all the timee, but the toys are part of the 'look'. I had a big thin a few months ago about wanting to have some attractive spaces, so we chose a colour scheme, and bought storage around that. Used white big storage units from IKea in all the rooms, matching boxes, etc etc. Also, toys get tidied or chucked - am quite ruthless. (Chucked = car boot/ charity/ etc)

We have a playroom and ban the DSs from every other room in the house apart for their bedroom. We also declutter aggressively every year.

Seriously, it really works. Keeps all the mess in one place until it can be binned.

A good saying I once heard was " only dull people have immaculate homes" and how true, why bother fighting a losing battle, as long as its clean and noone is gonna dye from dysentry from a dirty kitchen, then sod it, the housework will always be there waiting for you. :o

Beta

Are they allowed through the door or is it only if they are accompanied by toys that the sirens go off?

We have an Expedit unit from Ikea in our dining room and a toy chest in DS' bedroom. Everything goes into there every night so that when I sit down to relax I can't see any toys etc.

I think DS probably falls under the category of having an obscene amount of toys (I think I may start a seperate thread about it). However they are all stored away tidily, he is allowed one lots of toys out at a time eg playtent, lego, drawing stuff, trains and he knows if he wants something else out he has to tidy away what he already has out.

Good storage and regular decluttering is key IMO.

Alibaba - no DSs not allowed in other rooms unless we are with them. They know there are parent rooms and children rooms.

TBH we dont invade their space either but as a famly we tend live in the kitchen 90% of the time and their play room is next to the kitchen.

playroom with a lock on it here (lock needed because it prevents the door bursting back open when i finally slam it shut ) my neighbours have a big shed in the garden (near to the house though!) which they have turned into a 'den' for toys and kids- works well until it rains

very big built in cupboards in living room... toys get tidied/thrown there at the end of every day, and about once every 6 weeks i tidy up the cupboards and throw out all the unidentifiable bits of plastic toot

we have ikea expedit in ds2's bedroom, brilliant for tidying up at bedtime

I love the idea of a play shed.

to keep number of toys under control when i was a kid mum used to give us a box to put 'toys we dont play with anymore, so we can give them to santa to give to poor children who dont have any toys' i presume they then went down the local charity shop. i intend to repeat this with dc's when they are older

I'm so looking forward to clearing out huge numbers of baby toys in a years time. For the last 5.5 years we've had a baby in the house so haven't been able to declutter as the older ones grow out of stuff but ds2 is the last so soo the playschool and toddler group are going to start reveiving bin bags full from me

dd has her own room and it's easy to clean up as she has a box for barbies, a box for dolls clothes, shelves for books and bigger toys and a huge box in her wardrobe for miscellaneous toys.

the ds' also have boxes but all the random baby toys clutter their room alot and the playroom is chaos despite the shelves.

One DD (a toddler) and a roomy three bedroom house - so our house is not that messy BUT... I regularly purge DD's toys and give away and every single room in the house except for the study has a toy box or more in it. All toys are chucked into a toybox periodically during the day and certainly by the time it's DD's bedtime. I'm not anal about putting everything back in its place (not even Duplo and small items) - so long as all toys are in one toy box or the other then it's all good.