When Dave and I were house hunting, we loved our home's layout from the minute we stepped in the house and it's pretty much the reason we bought the house. The house is essentially an open floorplan ranch including the kitchen, living room, dining room and attached office combined with a bi-level layout that has bedrooms, bathrooms, a laundry room and a very large bonus room. The previous owners had this bonus room set up as a hang out spot for their 3 teenage boys with a large couch and TV.
In my mind I had this room set aside for the greatest sewing and crafting room that ever was and began happily pinning my heart out with organizational ideas on Pinterest. But something changed somewhere between when my first son Bowen was between the ages of 1 and 2. Every toy that came in changed from being sort of one single thing to toys with a million little pieces that now started getting scattered everywhere. We are so blessed to have three children, but could see the writing on the wall. We were going to need a highly functional toy room.
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Updating the color pallet
The first thing we did was start transitioning the room from the brown, yellow and neutral color scheme to the color scheme we're working throughout the house: navy, grey, white and blush pink. The walls are Mindful Grey by Sherwin-Williams. For the trim color, we used Totten's Inlet by Valspar throughout the entire house.
Lighting upgrade
We also had to address the lighting. We found these great ceiling mounted LED lights at Costco and replaced the 3 lights in this room and ended up using them in our two hallways and the kids rooms too. In the after photos, you can see the huge impact they have in the space and they are also energy efficient.
We've also been slowly transitioning all the old interior hollow doors in the house to these 5 panel, solid doors that are in tune with the home's mid-century modern feel. I absolutely love them and in each room we use them, they make a huge difference in how the room feels. Dave also painted these with Totten's Inlet.
Storage
Next up was tackling the overwhelming amount of toys. Logically we landed on storage bins and we needed many of them! Dave had previously made some built-ins for me for under our TV and they fit these 13" storage bins from Target perfectly. We also painted the with Totten's Inlet. We had 24 cubbies on one wall and there were several patterns to choose from in our navy, grey and white theme. We also needed a way to indicate what was squirreled away in each of these bins so we printed out pictures of the kids toys in addition to the words since my kids can't read yet. To provide flexibility for future changes, we attached the bin labels with magnets by crazy gluing one to the back of the plastic label holder and using another inside the actual bin.
Adding the fun
Of the two of us, Dave is definitely the more fun parent. He insisted on both a climbing wall and a slide in the room. For the slide, he was able to find a slightly damaged rejected slide from a nearby swing set company and attached it directly to the left side of the built ins. We could still fit the storage bins in the bottom two cubbys of the last column but the very top one has a smaller wooden bin in it instead.
As an alternative to stairs on the back of the slide, the kids climb up the climbing wall and pull themselves to the top of the slide. This turned out to be both a space saver and a great way to burn energy on rainy days! Dave designed and installed this climbing wall himself. The pulls we used are great, extremely durable and they came in bright, fun colors. We found rubber matting at Rubber Flooring Inc to put on that half of the room which covers any climbing wall falls as well as doubling as a wrestling mat for the boys….and Daddy of course.
Designing around the floor
You can see the flooring is an oversized brown tile. Not what I would have chosen but still in great shape and ripping it out and replacing it would have added a ton of time and expense to this project. Instead, I ordered an oversized rug that covers the majority of the remaining floor next to the rubber mat section. I absolutely love this rug from rugs.com: Grey 9' x 12' Lattice Trellis Rug | Rugs.com. It is forgiving every time goldfish crackers get smashed into it and the fun pattern reminds me of carbon nanotubes (The History and Development of Carbon Nanotubes (azonano.com) for anyone interested!) which hits on my chemistry background. While I love it, it wasn't terribly expensive so the kids can really have fun when they paint and do crafts and I don't worry about if anything gets spilled. This is their room at the end of the day. Of everything we did to this room, the rug is the item that gets the most compliments!
While Dave insisted on the climbing wall and slide, I insisted there be somewhere comfortable for parents to sit and supervise activities. We considered a few options such as a high-top table with barstools or oversized beanbags but landed on a small couch that could also double as a comfy place for the kids to curl up and watch a movie or eventually read a book one day.
The space we had left for seating was an L-shaped corner between the end of the built-ins and the left side of the closet. It's an interesting spot as there is a brick wall that is the back side of the fireplace from our living room upstairs. I searched endlessly for a small sectional that would fit perfectly in the space but couldn't find one that wasn't two or three inches too long or too short. I also started to think that an armless sectional that would eventually look sort of like booth seating would make the most sense.
I finally came across Home Reserve - Adaptable Furniture for Everyday Life where you can order highly customizable sectionals. Everything is modular so you can mix and match to create exactly what you're looking for and also there are many choices for the fabric. I went with an armless Ray sectional in Oscar Navy. An added bonus with these couches is every single piece of fabric can be removed and washed, which was perfect for where this one was going in my house! Also, we don't have a dog right now but if you had a dog that chewed one cushion, you could reorder just the one cushion that might have been destroyed. This was the biggest splurge in the room but I have not regretted it. I love the couch and it looks custom for the space.
Table upcycle
The last big item we were missing in the room was some sort of workspace for the kids. I had an old, 4 person table from my first condo that was destined for the trash that we decided to try to convert to a shorter table that would double as both a work table for the kids and a coffee table for the couch. We weren't sure how the base would cut down as it seemed to be real wood but was covered with a laminate material. Since we were going to trash it anyway, we gave it a shot.
Dave essentially cut the base in half and then we installed large wheels to the bottom so it could roll easily out of the way if we needed more space for an activity. It didn't cut perfectly smooth so I decided to paint both the base and the top. Since it was a laminate surface, I used this a primer that doesn't require pre-sanding ahead of painting. I painted the base in everyone's favorite Navy, Hale Navy by Benjamin Moore and painted the top with a Repose Grey by Sherwin-Williams, which is one shade lighter than the wall color. I thought it turned out pretty good and again, since we were about the trash the table, I don't worry about what happens to it.
The last thing we did before we moved all the toys in was to set up a wall with some oversized picture frames to display the kids' artwork. At the time, my parents were downsizing their home and had several art pieces they were moving along. There seem to always be old pictures for sale at second hand shops so you could easily find a set. I removed all the actual art and used the same primer I used for the art table to prep them for painting. I screwed in small eyelets to run string across and used small clothespins to easily swap out their masterpieces.
The closet has shelves that hold all the board games and there are a few oversized items in there as well that we prefer to keep out of sight when not in use. Overall, I was thrilled with how the room turned out and the kids love it as well. The toy room is not on the main living floor of our home so it's more of an event when we go down there. Interestingly, now that their toys are not out all the time upstairs, they seem to find them sort of "new again" when we go down there, another bonus on rainy days!
There are so many cool toy rooms out there where people are getting really creative, what have you seen lately?
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