When I took these pictures of Maureen in her sundress a couple of weeks ago, we were at my inlaw's house. Our dentist is near their house and I needed some work done, so John's mom watched the kids while I got drilled. Afterwards, while we waited for the pizza to arrive for dinner, we spent some time in the yard. Maureen walked around barefoot and inspected clover, Johnny drove his ride-on tractor around in circles, and John and I sat in the grass and watched them.
It was relaxing. And while we sat there, I couldn't help but think how nice it was to be able to sit in grass without inspecting it for broken glass or rat turds first.
That was the first incident.
The second incident was on Friday, when we took the kids to the playground after dinner. I had to follow Maureen closely, not because I was afraid she might fall, but because there was a used condom lying near the slide and I didn't want her to touch it.
Last weekend, my brother-in-law had a cookout. I sat on his deck and watched my husband run around in the yard with the kids. Once again, no dog poop, no needles, no icky city trash.
That was the third incident.
On Sunday, we went to Home Depot to pick up some more flowers for my containers and for my fence pots. I was planning on Johnny and I planting them Monday, while Maureen napped, but it started to thunder and sprinkle a little after the kids went to bed, so I decided to hurry up and get them planted so I could take advantage of the rain for some free watering. While I was out back, loosening root balls and patting down potting soil, I heard an ominous squeaking from the other side of the fence. A rodent. Probably a rat.
That was incident number four.
All this adds up to something that has been a whisper in the back of my head for some time now. The whisper is becoming louder, and pretty soon the voice will be shouting.
We need to move.
We've outgrown our house. Johnny and Maureen really need a yard to run around in, one without enormous city rats and shards of glass.
I love Baltimore, I love our closeness to everything, I love that I can park my van out front and not need to drive it for a week. I love the access to culture, food, fun. But it's becoming increasingly obvious that this is not where we want to stay permanently.
We're looking at a time frame of a year. Johnny starts preschool in the fall here, and we're waiting to see what the real estate market does. In addition, Maureen will be going on three and should have ditched a lot of the baby gear by then. We'll be able to store the changing table and the highchair and have a more "grown up" house to show to potential buyers.
So here is where I need your help.
In the corner of my living room/dining room is the Pack N' Play, where it has sat since Maureen's birth. She's never in it now, and it has turned into a toy dumping ground. I'm ready to put it away, but I also have no place to put the toys that are in it.
Here is the catch. Underneath the Pack N' Play is the trapdoor to our basement.
I've done some rearranging and stored some stuff away to be rotated, but I have two kids at varying developmental levels and they each have their own favorites.
I'm looking for an attractive and affordable option to store stuff, especially the non-squashable, non-stackable stuff, like Maureen's Roll-A-Rounds Gumball machine, or a big muslin bag filled with wooden blocks. Whatever it is, it needs to be lightweight and easily moved, so we can still get into our basement. I'm also a fan of staff that won't be an "eyesore" when we're ready to move, and maybe even something that prevents the kids from dumping all their toys into a big pile on the floor.
How do you store your kids' toys? Can you help me?
It was relaxing. And while we sat there, I couldn't help but think how nice it was to be able to sit in grass without inspecting it for broken glass or rat turds first.
That was the first incident.
The second incident was on Friday, when we took the kids to the playground after dinner. I had to follow Maureen closely, not because I was afraid she might fall, but because there was a used condom lying near the slide and I didn't want her to touch it.
Last weekend, my brother-in-law had a cookout. I sat on his deck and watched my husband run around in the yard with the kids. Once again, no dog poop, no needles, no icky city trash.
That was the third incident.
On Sunday, we went to Home Depot to pick up some more flowers for my containers and for my fence pots. I was planning on Johnny and I planting them Monday, while Maureen napped, but it started to thunder and sprinkle a little after the kids went to bed, so I decided to hurry up and get them planted so I could take advantage of the rain for some free watering. While I was out back, loosening root balls and patting down potting soil, I heard an ominous squeaking from the other side of the fence. A rodent. Probably a rat.
That was incident number four.
All this adds up to something that has been a whisper in the back of my head for some time now. The whisper is becoming louder, and pretty soon the voice will be shouting.
We need to move.
We've outgrown our house. Johnny and Maureen really need a yard to run around in, one without enormous city rats and shards of glass.
I love Baltimore, I love our closeness to everything, I love that I can park my van out front and not need to drive it for a week. I love the access to culture, food, fun. But it's becoming increasingly obvious that this is not where we want to stay permanently.
We're looking at a time frame of a year. Johnny starts preschool in the fall here, and we're waiting to see what the real estate market does. In addition, Maureen will be going on three and should have ditched a lot of the baby gear by then. We'll be able to store the changing table and the highchair and have a more "grown up" house to show to potential buyers.
So here is where I need your help.
In the corner of my living room/dining room is the Pack N' Play, where it has sat since Maureen's birth. She's never in it now, and it has turned into a toy dumping ground. I'm ready to put it away, but I also have no place to put the toys that are in it.
Here is the catch. Underneath the Pack N' Play is the trapdoor to our basement.
I've done some rearranging and stored some stuff away to be rotated, but I have two kids at varying developmental levels and they each have their own favorites.
I'm looking for an attractive and affordable option to store stuff, especially the non-squashable, non-stackable stuff, like Maureen's Roll-A-Rounds Gumball machine, or a big muslin bag filled with wooden blocks. Whatever it is, it needs to be lightweight and easily moved, so we can still get into our basement. I'm also a fan of staff that won't be an "eyesore" when we're ready to move, and maybe even something that prevents the kids from dumping all their toys into a big pile on the floor.
How do you store your kids' toys? Can you help me?
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10 comments:
I store toys in wicker baskets. I have two matching baskets in the living room each on the lowest shelf of side by side book cases and one in Chase's bedroom. Although we probably have half as many toys they look controlled and reasonably good in the baskets even if they're heaped to overflowing.
I'm pretty cheap when it comes to toy storage. I use rubbermaid bins. They lightweight and come in a variety of sizes, with lids. Although we have too many toys and they overflow so much I can't use the lids, but at least I have them! Not overly attractive though...
I love the big canvas bags you can order from Pottery Barn. It holds all the misc. stuff and is easy to move w/out being hideous:)
I got a couple of those rubber maid plastic drawer towers. Books, puzzles and crayons and coloring books go in the flatter drawers and the bulkier toys going in the bigger drawers. Not particularly beautiful, but completely functional.
I'm not too much help here...I always leave my kids toys in their bedrooms or the playroom/area. I liked the wicker basket idea and the rubbermaid shelving idea...there are rubbermaid drawers on wheels which would be easy to roll away when you need to access the basement but that doesn't take care of the bulky toys. What about a combination of wicker baskets and rubbermaid drawers on wheels?
Oh wait, I do remember a few houses back that I stored toys in the cupboards under the entertainment center and that worked very well. Any cupboards?
I have a large wicker truck from Pier One. I think I paid about $80 YEARS ago but it works great as a coffee table and stores a ton of toys. It's been great and lets us have the "toy central" look or "sophisticated adult" look whenever we need it. Normally, we have it pushed against the wall, to give Trent more space to run in the family room.
You'll sell the house way faster if you pack up all those toys and store them in your in-laws' house. Plastic storage anything can cost you thousands of dollars in sale price, plus add to the time that you are living under incredible stress with the house on the market. Last year, we stored every single toy except a couple of stuffed animals and the Duplos. We sold in 4 days. Thank goodness. Any sort of extra furniture? Store that too! Make the house look spare and clean.
Like you asked my opinion! Are you staying right around Baltimore?
we store toys in those wirecubes you can get at target or whatever. i built a "bookcase" and we store each type of toy in a labeled bin in one of the cubes (OCD much?) it is a very orderly looking system that is easy for my 4 year old to maintain.
also you should move to hamilton we are still in baltimore and instead of typical cat-sized bmore rats we have bunnies and nice yards
I am a little behind on the commenting, but have you checked IKEA? They had some really neat (cheap) storing containers. They even had some cute plastic ones with rollers so they move easily.
Use some kind of baskets and drawers for organizing kids toys in proper way!!
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