Playrooms do you have one? Do your children use it ?

[morningmayhem]

We have 4 young children and we were thinking of building a playroom/dayroom for them. So I was just wondering do your children play in their rooms or is it just used for storing their toys? and how are the rooms set up what shall I put in there. I was thinking of making a home corner with cooker etc and an area for painting,playdough Any other ideas would be great thanks

Yes yes yes. As others have said, they can have free expression with arts/crafts, railways,TV,lego - whatever they like. You can either just shut the door in the evenings or quickly tidy up, keeping an adults only space for yourselves. Particularly when my first 2 were younger, i tried to keep their toys in the playroom and their books in their bedrooms, to make for a calmer sleeping environment.
Get versatile storage to adapt as they grow, and every month or so check all the puzzles, construction kits etc in order to keep on top of all those missing parts. It doesn't take long to do. I would also recommend a large fairly low level table: good for art work and/or assembling castles puzzles, etc.

My house sounds like your cody, we have a conservatory off our kitchen with a little tv in it, so they can watch it whilst I'm in the kitchen. I don't go in my lounge in the daytime. We have a playroom which is treated more like a store room, my dh built a shelving system for loads of storage boxes with everything in them, leaving clear floor space, so they can actually play without tripping over everything else, I put a CD player in there, so dd can use it to dance in.

Great idea, even if they don't get used to play in, they are a good place to keep the mess away from your main living space.

Also my computer is in there, so I can chat on here whilst they are happily playing

We had a playroom in our last house which was always in use and now we have a basement kitchen/family room where all the toys are. There is a separate grown up sitting room where there aren't any toys. My children love having the playroom where all their toys stay out (it isn't the most tasteful or tidy of areas) and I like being able to keep an eye on them. My ds (nearly 6) has just started saying that he wants all his toys in his bedroom, so I think that older children might use a playroom less. My children don't have very big bedrooms and they all share so we find a playroom really useful.

We moved house when the boys were 3 and 5, which was a good excuse to expel them from the living room, and make that an adult space Though the TV is in there, so they are allowed in occasionally!

When the kids were small we had a huge open plan living room/diner, with patio doors onto the garden. And that worked well to have everything in one space as it were. But now they are older it is great to have more rooms.

They have:
A small bedroom with bunks, wardrobe, chest of drawers and nothing else - no toys.
Dining room (not smart!) with tiled floor, with open access to pens, paper, paint and craft materials - but downstairs so generally lightly supervised! (They are now 5 and 7, but are still not allowed pens or anything like that upstairs.)
Playroom upstairs - huge room with all their toys in, and a spare double bed in the corner for guests.

The boys generally spend their time in the playroom or in the dining room.

One thing I've found great has been a cheap hanging rail to put dressing up clothes on. As a result of being on easy access they have been played with much more, I think.

I do insist it is kept tidy; as otherwise I soon resent them having the biggest room in the house! They are only allowed to play with one thing at a time; but the benefit of the playroom is that they don't have to tidy away a trainset layout or whatever it is they've constructed at the end of each day. They are pretty good at keeping it tidy.

Make sure you think through your storage carefully. We basically shelved a wall with cheap racking shelving, and everything goes on that with easy open access.

We are lucky that it is a very big room; but do make sure you maximise the floor space - don't put too much furniture in; they don't need it. What they probably want is plenty of space to build a fantastic trainset layout, or scalextric, or zoo, or farm, or whatever it is.

sorry - I've gone on a bit.

My dd (3)has a playroom, we did it at first because she wouldn't go to sleep at night because her bedroom was full of toys. So we moved her into the study which was a boxroom. In there she had her bed and a bookshelf. Her old larger bedrrom became hre playroom which was good in theory but because it was upstairs it was never used.

In our new house we use what was the front room as a playroom , the dining room was bigger so that is our lounge and the kitchen is big enough to eat in, eventually we will do an extension, not sure yet if that will be a dining room or playroom.

her playroom is fab as all her larger toys can be out permanently, e'g' kitchen and dolls house. I also have the computer in there for my studies (or mumsnet ) so I am with her in the day, she is also know a bit of an expert on the computer. We have our old sofa for me to lounge on and it tends to stay quite tidy as I am with her or not so far away so it doesn't get trashed. Being the room that you see from the front of the house also encourages me to be tidy.

It is great thought because my partner and I have our own adult room which is always tidy and a haven from toys. DD still has a box room to sleep in and I get to have a double room upstairs as a study.

My mum moans that a playroom is a waste especially as it is the first room that you see and we have lost our formal dining room. But I don't really care as we moslty eat at the table in the kitchen anyway and I would rather have a room my daughter and her friends enjoyed everyday rather than a room used every other sunday and at christmas.

we have room for one - our house is what they call 'high set' and underneath is built in but we have yet to set it up as a play area.... dh is trying to claim it as his space - pool table etc but we will have to see. At the moment too annoying to go up and downstairs with dd who does not walk and me being heavily pregnant. After no2 and final babe arrive might actually get organised enough to do something.

In Argos (p429) storage unit - my dh built one, but about 4 times as long to fit the whole of the one side of the playroom, we have put clear boxes in so they can see what is in the tubs, it has really worked well, keeping the floor space free for train sets etc... also you can put things on top too.

Not that you were asking about practical storage ideas, but I thought I would tell you anyway