Toy Storage Solutions

[Weegle]

Criteria are:

We don't have much space so it might need to go upwards.

Tasteful to fit in our living room or funky boys to fit in DS bedroom.

To take toddler toys - so fairly big but with parts e.g. building block castle, happyland stuff with figures etc. The pieces drive me mad.I think probably 15-20 of that sort of sized toys.

The toys must be able to be hidden away so it needs a door or cupboards or something.

I don't want to be rooting around for things and I want to find stuff easily so don't want a big chest that you just chuck stuff in.

I don't have a very big budget but if people have ideas I can always attempt to make/find something similar!

Does something exist? Do I just have to resign myself to the house being a massive mess of toys with their pieces missing under the sofa etc?

we have clear plastic boxes which we stack - they were aprox 3.50 each and we have about 10/12. I'm thinking of getting a mid sleeper bed like this to put them under.

www.argos.co.uk/static/Product/partNumber/6618489/Trail/searchtext>MID+SLEEPER.htm

The Trofast range from Ikea seems to fit the bill for a lot of people - no doors though.

I do that Raggydoll - and the mid sleeper has a tent round it so you don't even see the boxes. It's fab, i'd definitely recommend it Weegle - the bed off the floor obv means you still have all the floor space so in a small bedroom like my Dd's this is great.

Or something like this from Ikea. You can buy extra boxes too.

Some shelves could be stacked with games, puzzles, larger toys etc and the drawers would be good for toys that come with bits.

I've not got it myself but a friend has it in her DC's bedroom and it holds loads of stuff (as you obviously know from experience ).

Friend has a "if its not on the shelves it goes in the bin" rule so it has to hold loads!

a lay room eg

sigh

ah I thought a trip to IKEA might be in order but it's a long trek and their website doesn't seem to work for me - I can't see the larger images.

Unfortunately I can't do the raised bed technique although I would love to (as I love the cabini beds) as DS' bed is one of those ones with a guest bed under so that it can double up as the guest bedroom as we don't have a spare room but quite frequently have people to stay.

I've been thinking of maybe one of those canvas shelving units where the front rolls up and then having under-shelf baskets under each shelf for the small bits. I know IKEA do those units and Lakeland do the baskets. I like the idea of the toys being on shelves rather than in tubs, think it will be tidier or will that not work in practice?

Oh no! Tubs are the way forward. Think of all the little bits (eg happy land people) do you think your dc will spend hours lining them up so they don't fall off the front of back of shelves ?! If you have tubs they can just throw them all in but if the tubs aren't too big (like the trofast ones) they aren't too hard to find later either. I love all these toy storage threads after Christmas!

Am stalking you from my GLTC play table thread

ah yes we're hopping over threads!

Ok I will brace myself and go to IKEA. I know I have to do it but I am a snob at heart and want to be DIFFERENT! But inside there is this little voice telling me that actually they do it quite well really, the storage malarky.

lol weegle. An honest snob I have no problem with! Good luck at Ikea (can i recommend not taking dh...mine has a tantrum as soon as we enter the carpark!)

There's this sort of thing too, but may not be versatile enough.

We use the trofast ikea furniture too. Its brill.

We use trofast - it's fantastic. We have the 'stepped unit' in the playroom - 2 of them, with the lowest step in the centre, so it provides a low play table as well (does that make sense? They're symmetrically placed). Also the tall unit with buckets underneath and shelves above. And 2x the low upright unit in our office. Perfect for happy land etc, and the children can actually tidy up themselves, and if you want to bring 'happy land' downstairs it's easy to bring 1 bucket.