Organising a playroom - furniture/storage/contents/keeping-it-presentable suggestions?

[stirlingstar]

I'm planning to turn our spare room into a play room - would be great to have your suggestions for furniture etc (particularly storage) to include.

It's a large room. Will have to double as a spare room when we have lots of visitors. DC's currently very young (2 and 6 months, both boys), so would like to plan it so that will be practical now (when will realistically get used a bit less and when we're in there with them) and also well in to primary school age.

We currently have one sofa bed and one built-in set of shelves (not very deep). Room is carpeted.

What are good choices for storage? Is it worth getting a child-size table & chair set? Etc etc.

I like the look of the GLTC-type storage units with all the pretty boxes, but would we get enough use out of them to justify the price? Or is Ikea a better bet?

And any other pearls of wisdom for keeping the place relatively clean & tidy (ish) would be welcome!

Cheers

I've got GLTC storage expensive but I think they are having a sale. Ds's room very tidy.
Toy/big basket with lid.
Plastic tool box for lego and lots of shoe boxes to keep various sets together.
Don't forget to dump some stuff and give to charity children don't need tons.

Keep art stuff together pens in mug and paper etc in a spare book bag. paints inside cupboard

these are great from Ikea. And cheaper. You can build them up as and when you need them and don't lok too babyish for later on

my dining room also doubles as a playroom,i've got 2 large wicker chests with my dd's toys in,they're great as they fit either side of the fire place.also to save space i've taken all dd's puzzles and games out of their boxes and put them into plastic wallets [from poundland 6 in a pack]by doing this i can pack all her toys away so i get my dining room back.

we got lots of the plastic boxes described by tommy and put them in a discounted ikea wardrobe (5 on each side).

in each of the boxes is a set (train/playmobil/etc). we also have shelves; we got some ikea boxes and put some of the toys in there, and all jigsaw etc on top.

They now only get only one box out at a time and packn up before they get another one (they're 3 & 20 months)

they have a little table and some chairs and we also have a old dining table in there that they use a lot more.

Also an easel and paper bit (with all the stuff in drawers..out of reach at the mo!)

they love there playroom and so do we only had sorted for a few months and it has made a huge difference tidying up, also they're toys are organised so they play with them much better

I have this in our playroom

"storage unit www.argos.co.uk/static/Product/partNumber/8757166/Trail/searchtext%3ECHILDREN%27S+STORAGE+UNIT.htm"

But the key thing I find for our playroom, is to limit the amount of toys that the children have access to - otherwise they have a tendency to get everything out! I therefore put lots of things up on high shelves (along one wall) - particularly the jigsaw puzzles and games with lots of pieces that are a nightmare to put back. This then means that I can limit access, and let them have the next toy, when the first is put away and so on... The stuff that is easy to throw back goes in the big boxes.

I have also got a table that they can use to do their cutting and sticking on in there and a big bookcase,and a few other things.
HTH

we have the same ikea boxes as Tommy mentioned + they make great bookshelf to go with that as well great for books, puzzles or dvds
we do have a small desk with few chairs (althouhg i inherited these its not ikea)as well great for painting or "work" or when friends come over for a tea party

I think unless you keep original boxes, it's much more difficult to rotate toys (ie; playmobil special lego sets) There's something overwhelming about those big boxes of flotsam and jetsam. It's nice to get out the box with the picture on the side and easier to pass on to others too. I would do things like put all fantasy figures in one box, all pirates in another, all dinosaurs in another, all knights in another. And then hide them and only rotate over 6 months.

I've noticed that the more space less THINGS the better because then they play quite complicated imaginative games together in the space. Things like bricks and brio and some soft toys were in constant use, whereas playmobil was interesting for a bit then needed to hide, as did puppets, construction toys, playdough.

I had to give away the toy kitchen and pretend shop in the end as although they liked playing with them there just wasn't enough room for them to enjoy all the other things they liked doing in playroom, train track, dancing, somersaults, making camps.

But mine are older so perhaps they just had too many things...

Thanks everyone. I like the look of the Argos stuff - similar to the Ikea but at least they do home delivery which would be much easier.

Toy rotation also definitely a good aim - try to do that now but anything that makes it easier is good.

table and chairs yes. we have open shelves - art stuff on the ones out of ds's reach, things he can get down and play with at his height - plus a few of those flexible plastic tub basket things, forgotten what they're called but the ones everyone has, into which you can just chuck everything at the end of the day. clear up when they can no longer manage to play but easiest not to become too obssessive about it - the point of a playroom is that you can shut the door on it and not mind about all the tat invading the house. we leave ds's trainset set up there for example. we have a sofabed also which is mainly used for making dens out of cushions and blankets and for jumping off in deathdefying manner.
if you have floorspace a rug is worth it - for small boys, one of those ones with roads printed on for running cars along is good (ikea do them i think) or if you'd rather have something that lasts longer a rug is still useful for playing games (it becomes an island/base for a den/thing for running round etc).

I just got an expedit shelving unit (4 x 2) from ikea and put the komplement boxes in it and its great for tidying away my 2yr olds stuff. He can reach the bottom shelves so any stuff I want accessible goes in there. He's very good at 'tidy up' so we never have more than two boxes available at once!

He also has a gltc train table(off ebay) and an idea table and chair (latt) which he has his meals on but also uses as a craft table. He has a bookcase (sorry cant find on their site this season but the shape is like this ) which we got from vertbaudet (40% off - never ever buy full price from there!) and I just moved out the vertbaudet box shelf because the boxes were too small to fit anything substantial in.

This is all in our dining room - which is also my office!

My top tip is to use transparent boxes (such as Whitefurze)in storage units instead of the red / blue plastic options that are usually supplied.

It is much easier for my children to choose what to play with and tidy up again if they can see what's inside each box. Also I think it looks more attractive.