Please tell me how you keep your dc's toys tidy....

[Haribolicious]

....and your house looking like a home rather than a section of Toys R Us!!?? I desperately need some kind of storage device for toys as they are spilling out of the living room into the dining room. I am thinking of the Trofast storage from Ikea what dya think? Does anyone have one and if so, do you recommend?

However, I do need something for the living room that looks less plasticky! Is a wooden toy box the answer??

We have a trofast set and it's great. No-one in house eclectech is particularly fond of tidying up but we just pile everything back into the crates and we're sorted. 5 mins max at the end of the day and we're done.
Also like wooden toy boxes but in the short term felt the trofast was better in terms of not shutting on small hands by accident.

We bought an Ottoman - quite cheaply about £60 I think. Nice as it can bouble as a seat for a couple of people. Just have to work out how to keep the toys in there - or learn that magic Mary Poppins clicky finger trick....

we'vw got a Trofast in ds's room - briliant because you can seperate different toys into different trays and then just bring one or two down. Also have a nice wooden box for living room - I'm afraid, filled with what can now only be described as junk, but hopefully as ds gets older can become extra storage for us.

Buy this toy tidy gadget - tis marvellous

We used to have one large toybox but found if ds wanted eg his bob the builder trucks then everything would be emptied out till he found them (and of course not put back )

we hafe something similiar to this system now but its wicker baskets I think its called banas or something like that

we try to keep the same sort of toys in each box eg all his bob trucks in one and all his farm stuff in another

means when ds is looking for eg lofty he only empties one box and not every toy he has onto the floor

I've got friends who use Trofast and it seems to work well.

We have a smallish house and do the following:

• only keep toys DS actually plays with - all others are either ebayed/charity'ed/put away

• I then split the toys 50% in his room in a combination of boxes in a unit (kind of like trofast) with a separate box for arts and crafts

• All downstairs toys are kept in the lounge: one big wooden toy box which can be shut at the end of the day, one small box of books and one small box of tony toys which would get lost in the big toy box. He also has a toddler table which has tubs in the side - one tub is musical instruments, one is vehicles, one is all his farm animals etc and one is dinosaurs. jigsaws go in ziplock bags in the big toy chest.

We also, from a very young age have gone with the one in one out rule. I really notice the chaos when he has friends over and I relax the rule!

this toy tidy is even better than Doodles!

We have the Trofast combi thing. We still have a living room which looks like the local branch of ToysRUs. Only messier.

Easy for me as we only have one toddler atm - but for us the key is not to have too many toys! Majority of toys are stored downstairs, with some up in DS's room, rotating when bored. I also get rid of stuff regularly (fed up of the way my house constantly fills up with tat - not just toys tho!)

I have a wooden toybox which has a safe-closing thing on it - got it through NCT website, not sure who makes it. We also have a few plastic crates from the pound shop which I try and stow behind furniture at the end of the day to avoid that Toys R Us look. Also shove stuff under/behind sofa...

I have this possible the most expensive toy box in the world.

However, it keeps everything out of sight and my house doesnt look completlt like a toy store

depending on how big the toys are... we recently bought the expedit system from ikea and have the branas baskets (but they do fabric boxes for less. it looks much smarter and holds loads.

Thanks for the suggestions everyone!

Loved yours especially Doodle and Ecmo but Madhouse - your suggestion is lovely but a tad too expensive !

I too have a toddler that likes to empty everything until he finds a specific toy but I'm fortunate that he quite likes to help tidy up and willingly does so - yipeee so I figured that if I can get something quick (at the mo we just have plastic crates which I detest). Have tried to separate toys and put some in the bedroom but DS just brings some down when he wants to play with those toys!! He's also perfected that special move of following me round and unloading stuff as I tidy up some days I just wait until he's in bed but other days I just can't stand it....you know?!

Oh I know, it took some persuading DH. I agreed that it would last for years and we have had it 3 now already. I think that it is a forever peice of furniture. It came all built rather than flat pack

We have the Ikea thing in ds bedroom. Works well although everything still all comes out - it's just quciker to put away and looks tidy when it is away.

we use the the expedit with baskets in the bottom for toys and the rest books

ds has the smaller version in his room

i got ds a wooden toybox out of argos, i painted it blue and it stays in his room. he keeps larger toys like big cars, bags of blocks, hobby horse in it and then i also got three kanvas boxes from asda.com's numbers range for the smaller things, one has all his train set pieces, one has all bob the builder things and the other has his farm sets in it. theyre on an open shelf thing also from argos. the only thing we keep downstairs is his arts and crafts stuff because i can supervise him if its there.

trofast in the lounge
toy chest in dd's bedroom
regular trips to charity shop to clear out

still usually enough mega bloks scattered around to make walking around barefoot a hazard

in our den we have two ikea units expedit, one alongways and one up the way. these are filled with clear brownish plastic boxes. i love that they are neat but at the same time you can see toys through them.

we have these boxes but in brown plastic i think they look great