Anyone have any good ideas for storing kids toys?

In My Humble Opinion
1

My little boy has just turned 2, and somehow, in the past 2 years has amassed an amount of toys about 20 times his own body weight - it’s a LOT.

I’m in the process of sorting through things and making a pile of things that he has out grown, or never plays with that I’m going to get rid of, and at the same time I’m putting all his other things into sets to see if there are missing pieces, or if things are damaged or don’t work. Regardless, there is still a LOT of stuff left here and I’m looking for ideas to store the stuff where he can still play with it, but I don’t have kids’ toys all over my living room. :slight_smile:

So, at the moment he has 3 toy boxes that are full to overflowing. They aren’t ideal because stuff is just thrown into them and I think it makes it hard for him to find stuff, and almost impossible for him to find sets to play with.

I had thought of clear tupperware containers with each set in them, but that seems kind of…anal. He does have some shelving - I was thinking I could set the sets up on shelves and then he can pull them out when he wants to play with them but I can see where they go back when we’re cleaning up. However, I don’t know if that’s really going to work either.

Does anyone have any suggestions? I could buy a storage unit of some type if someone had a genius idea although I don’t have a ton of space to put it in. I think it would be nice for him to be able to see what’s in which container, so clear would be good. Or maybe a shelf with cubbies?

Anyway - all ideas please. :slight_smile:

2

Divide the toys into three (or four, or more if you need to) groups. Use whatever big, sturdy bins are economical for you. Try to keep playsets of toys together in the same bin. Keep one of the bins accessible; it’s the kid’s toybox. The other two can go into storage, in the garage, or whatever. This sorting process is a great time to throw away any broken toys or donate any toys you don’t need any more.

Every week, or two weeks, or month, or whatever time period you think is appropriate, put all the current toys back in their bin, and rotate bins. Ta dah, kid suddenly has a whole new set of toys to play with! More importantly, the number of toys you have to keep track of and keep tidy is much much smaller. Plus, when you get a whole bunch of toys all at once, like christmas or his birthday, you can spread them out across the bins, so he doesn’t get bored of all of them all at once.

3

Be anal. Save your sanity.

Even if (when) your plastic shoeboxes get stuff tossed into them at random, they’re still easier to find things in than a deep toychest.

I’m not a huge fan of cubbies simply because so many toys are odd sizes. I prefer the flexibility of shelves that can take small bins or large ones or large freestanding things without bins.

Get a net for the stuffed animals/dolls. Another for balls. Gets 'em up off the floor and uses the corners of his room that you’re probably not using.

Toy Organizers with bins are nice, but in my experience, they become useless sometime between preschool and first grade as the toys change. My son’s lasted longer than my daughter’s, because he was really into building toys (Lego, blocks, K’Nex) and those things work well with the bins. Her favorites (stuffed animals, books, craft kits) don’t work so well in them. If you go that route, I highly recommend going with a plain one like that linked, rather than a character themed one; when the kid decides that Thomas is “for babies”, you’ll have a battle on your hands.

Whatever doesn’t fit in a reasonable and tidy way in his room/playroom can go into those toychests and into the garage, attic, etc. When he’s forgotten all about it and you’ve got a bored kid on a rainy day, or a long car ride, you go grab something old/new and it’s all fun and smiles again.

Twice a year, about two weeks before his birthday and again before Christmas or another gift-giving holiday in your culture, go through the toys with him. For the next year or so, you’ll be doing the work, but he’ll learn how it works by watching you. Three piles: Trash, Keep, and Donate To The Kids Who Don’t Have Toys. This lets you declutter and make room for the next influx of toys, gets the old stuff he’s outgrown out of the house, and it also teaches him charity.

4

This actually looks quite nice, and would be a huge improvement over what we’re doing now.

He already has nets in his room and they work quite well, as you mentioned.

I am a bit amused that both of you have suggested that I have some epic off-site basement/attic/garage that I can store bins of toys in - heh. Not so much, I have a small condo and whatever toys he has have to live here - I mean I’m not paying for a storage unit for my kid’s toys. :smiley:

He doesn’t tend to get bored of things yet - he does have two other sets of toys he plays with - one with my mum and one with his dad so perhaps that helps.

5

Or if you already have a shelving unit, you could add bins or baskets like these to the bottom two or three shelves, the ones he can reach. That way you’re not adding more furniture.

6

OK, so make that underbed storage chests. Most of them are transparent, which is very useful.

7

I place them is a small locked soundproof closet along with the kids.

8

Ikea Trofast, Products - Discover Our Full Range Of Furniture And Homeware - IKEA and the bottom shelves of my bookcase for his books. Oh, and two large shallow plastic bins that slide out from under the sofa.
That’s it.

If he want more toys, something will have to go. Not a bad lesson to learn.

I have to admit, I am still the one making the choice for him and I am stealthily picking out things to give away. I know that if I involved him, it would be much harder, because he would want to keep everything. But I am really going to involve him, as he just turned four.

It helps if he looks forward to a new toy. “Honey, we don’t have space for that. If you want the new Lego Dino Headquarters, something else will have to go. Is there anything we can give to goodwill for some other kid to play with so we can have space to store Lego Dino Headquarters?”

9

I have one of those Trofast units in my garage for tools and DIY odds and ends, and find the plastic drawers to be infuriating. With any kind of weight in them, they flex so that the sides bow inwards and they drop out of the runners. Do you have the same problem?

10

Not at all. Toys are usually much lighter then tools, and the Trofast series is made for toys.
I store wine and pasta in them in an cellar closet, and I do have the same problem when I try to store several bottles of wine in a larger bin. But pasta is no problem. They are just not made for heavy weight stuff.

11

Yah - I’ve seen those particular units many times. I find them rather hideous. :frowning: The concept is OK, it’s just the execution that I find quite ugly.

I suppose I would like something similar to that, but that didn’t look like that. :smiley:

12

Well lah-de-dah. :smiley:

I don’t particularly like the appearance either but they work great for toys. There are three different sizes of bins which means you an be as granular as you want to be. They also slide out so you can take the whole bin out to play with a type of toy and then fill it up and put it back. Also, once it is slid in, even if what is in the drawer is messy, you can’t see it.

For larger toys, we use the big rubbermaid totes. One for each kid.

And…that’s all they get. Around their birthdays and christmas, we have a cleanout in advance of them getting new stuff. (They are old enough to choose themselves now.)

13

Oh, one thing I didn’t mention is that we have a craft/game cabinet in the living room. It’s just a bookshelf with a door. On the shelves we have little baskets we got at the dollar store to hold the supplies for various crafts. (One has pipe cleaners, another colouring books, etc.)

I also use a dollar store laundry basket to store their stuffed animals.

You don’t have to spend a lot of money.

14

I offer a different IKEA solution - Expedit. They make inserts that fit perfectly into each slot and they’re small enough for a reasonable number of toys each (so not too heavy). Lekman come in colours or clear so you can keep things in whatever classifications you want (all toy soldiers go in blue, lego in clear etc) and the colours are translucent so you can sort of see what’s inside.

15

I use these pop-up laundry baskets to organize toys. I found them in several colors at the dollar store.

We have one for costume pieces and one for puzzles and one for musical instruments, etc.

They go on their sides like drawers on the shelves, and then pull out easily to zoom around when picking things up. They can also just stand side-by-side and although the toys are not glaring to the adult eye, the child can easily see what s/he is looking for.

And cheap. They are really cheap.

I also have two super-large plastic storage bins (think plastic steamer trunk with no lid) that line one edge of the playroom. These are for the larger toys, which are just sort of randomly tossed in - no organization.

16

Not sure about age 2… but what I eventually did was move a lot of his old toys into the attic. Every now and then I’d let him go exploring in the attic. The rule was, whatever he wanted to bring down into the house, he had to bring the same amount of stuff up into the attic.

He thought it was great fun to go up there.

17

My daughter is 17 months, so we’re still very much at an age where I can throw things away and she’ll never realize they’re gone… but our system is three low bookshelves in her room, with some loose toys and bins for smaller things. I bought a big tub for the living room, the family room, and the garage, and rotate toys between the shelves and those. I find that changing the context of a toy usually makes it interesting again; plus she tends to ignore the toys while they’re on her bedroom shelves, so it’s a kind of “storage”.