Do you keep toys in living room?

[hickorydickorynurseryrhyme]

Or do you banish them from there?

Genuinely interested.

We have a big toy box but anything that doesn't fit isn't allowed to stay after play is finished for the day. It goes away in Trofast storage in the kitchen or their bedroom cupboards. At least, that's the plan. There's always stuff which is too big to go anywhere comfortably so they get stashed in corners looking neatish.

We do. When the dcs were small we had no where else for them. We have a bugger house but I quite like that they play in the living room still. I think if the toys were in the bedrooms they'd be less inclined to play together. And we get to interact while they play.

It would be nice to have a grown up living room but that would mean banishing traces of the dcs and I don't want to do that.

Ours is sort of open plan - living room with a wide archway into what was originally the dining room, now a play room. (Dining table is in the conservatory).

So the play room end (along with bedrooms) is in theory where all the toys are kept, and we have a curtain across the archway which we can close if we don't want to see all the crap toys in the evening.

However I am currently sitting on the sofa surrounded by wooden train track which has been snaking all round the living room floor for the past 3 days

Yes but in a storage bench, as per PP anything that doesn't fit will stay in her room (she's only 5 months so hasn't got much at the moment)
Anything big (baby gym/space saver jumperoo) gets folded up and tucked behind the living room door once she's gone to bed

Most play takes place in the living room. I too am currently surrounded by a three day, vast train track arrangement! When they put so much effort into an elaborate construction, it seems mean to take it down until a few days have passed.

I like it like this, as we get to spend more time together.

Our is also open plan and a sort of conservatory room to the side. The playroom is there but they never ever play in the playroom - most night a chuck everything back in but I am slowly teaching 3 year old that they have to be put away.
Some are in the bedroom in a basket

Yep, there's a big toy box in the living room, a shelf full of craft stuff and a Toot Toot track in a corner. I grew up not being allowed toys anywhere but bedrooms and the garden...a bit miserable to live somewhere where you're barely allowed to leave a trace of yourself in communal areas! If there wasn't a photo of me in the living room, people wouldn't know I lived there.

Yes, have one those Ikea expedit units with 4 x 4 squares, each one has a box of toys (train tracks, cars, magnets, Lego, arts and crafts, dressing up, board games, etc) and the rule is only 1 box of toys out at a time.

If dd wants to build something amazing that her younger brother can't destroy then she uses the spare bedroom.

Thanks everyone. Well our house always looks like a bomb has hit it lol!

Yes we do. When I was pregnant with ds eight years ago dh told me we would have no toys in the living room. That lasted five minutes. Then we did get to a point if relatively toy free as ds got older but now we have a ten month old dd it looks like a playroom.

So worth all the mess though

Toys in the living room here too. When they get to about ten, they seem to disappear into their bedrooms and you barely see them for the next five years, I'm told! So I'm enjoying having them playing around me while I still can.

No, but we have a playroom.

Games or play in progress can stay out over the weekend, though

We do, always have. I don't even like toy boxes. All lo's toys are on the floor (some in front of the mantle piece- we don't have a fire it's just a ledge, and the rest in the bay window). I like him to play downstairs. He has no toys in his bedroom

I do, all of DS's toys are in the living room because his bedroom is tiny. I hate all the plastic crap and appreciate that my house will never be featured in Homes & Gardens magazine, but it's not forever.

Downstairs.

A few live upstairs but he is not up there very often.

We also have some things hanging off the bannisters/over the stairs - an emergency stretcher for winching up sick Playmobil people and a big red cardboard cablecar (painted up like the Playmobil one ) . Not to mention the "art" decorating most walls.

I couldn't give a crap that it doesn't look like something from a magazine. It looks lived in and loved.