What do you do with toys if you don't have a playroom?

[thehouseofmirth]

Have totally lost control of the toy situation in our house. We only have one reception room and I really don't want it taken over by toys. DS is three so we have several large boxes of cars, other boxes of assorted stuff then medium to large things ranging from garage, dolls house, farm and crane to cash register etc.

There would almost be enough room in DS's bedroom for it all but he really plays downstairs most of the time.

I usually love organising things but am pregnant, tired and don't know what to do for the best. Any suggestions gratefully received.

Hmm, we have a small box of toys in the living room and most of the other stuff in a toy box in ds1's bedroom (ds2 still in with us). But we live in a bungalow so he goes down to his room to play when he wants to.

When the dds were little I lived in a two-storey house. We had the toybox (same one!) in the living room and the rest of the toys upstairs. I used to swap the toys around from time to time but never let them take over the living room or overspill the box. I generally had a cull just before a birthday/christmas.

Exactly the same as Miaou.

Swapping them around from time to time also revives old toys as far as playability is concerned IMO.

i do the same as miaou and dont need anything, one toy box downstairs, other 2 are up in lo's room and we swap toys around about every 2 weeks or so for variety (as much for her as for our sanity as one of them is full of noisy toys).

most of our lo's are kept in those huge plastic boxes with lids you can get for about a fiver from wilko's - can see whats in them and keep them relatively tidy. also helps occupy for an extra half hour in the morning if im not ready for out of bed at half 6!!!

We had everything sorted by type into plastic boxes under the bed. They were allowed one box "out" (either downstairs or upstairs) at a time.

We were at the stage where the sitting room looked like a branch of ToysRUs- now I have a rule where if something large comes downstairs, then something large (box of playmobil or whatever) has to go back upstairs. We still have the small bits and bobs strewn around the place but it's more like a room for all the family now.