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Stuffed animal spillover. A parking lot worth of toy cars. Puzzles stacked on games stacked on books. Magnatiles and Lego galore. If this sounds familiar, you’re not alone. My daughter is on the cusp of turning 3, and despite my best efforts, the toy and book overload is all too real. While I periodically move toys to our attic storage and tidy her playroom at least once daily, the holiday toy deluge called for more serious measures.
In the quiet hours of the new year, I went deep down the toy storage rabbit hole and emerged a new mom with an organized playroom and a little bit less stress. Read on for the toy storage hacks that keep me sane, as well as a few extras that I have my eye on.
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STUFFIE SLEEPOVER
Over the course of my daughter’s short life, her collection of stuffed animals has multiplied. She has her top-tier stuffies that sleep with her at night. But for all of the others, I needed a better solution than a bin that got dumped out on a daily basis. My goal was to move all of her stuffies out of the playroom and into her bedroom, but in a way that wouldn’t impede on her room’s small footprint.
After much internet research, I landed on hanging storage as my way in. The Amazon hanging stuffed animal net was certainly a step above the corner stuffie nets reminiscent of my childhood, but aesthetically the Liewood Haven Organizer won out. It’s small enough that I can hang it on one side of my daughter’s toddler bed, yet it holds a surprising amount of stuffed animals. It’s win/win: organization for me and a stuffie sleepover for my daughter.
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EVERYTHING IN ITS PLACE
There’s nothing worse to me than a bin of miscellaneous toys that gets dumped out on the rug, only for my daughter to walk away from it mere moments later. It doesn’t help her find the things she wants to play with, and it drives me up the wall. On my quest to categorize and contain toys, I first bought a few small Brightroom bins from Target that fit perfectly on a standard bookshelf. In a “no, duh” moment, I quickly realized that having all of the little toys organized goes a long way: cars with cars, animals with animals, and so on.
After that, I employed the much-Instagrammed hack of decanting board games into zipper pouches to keep all of the game pieces contained in a more space-efficient way. But between books, bins and zipper pouches, we were running out of shelf space. In another “no, duh” moment, I quickly realized that there’s a reason the IKEA Trofast storage system is in every other house. Because it comes in so many dimensions and colors, it’s easy to find a setup that works—the gray-on-gray matches our other bookshelf, and it fits perfectly under the TV in our playroom. A perfect finish to having everything in its place.
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BUDDING BOOKWORM
Like stuffed animals and cars and animal figures, my daughter’s book collection has rapidly expanded since she was born. While they’re easier to contain, I still like to keep them in their place to keep a tidy home and an engaging play area. Aside from our typical bookshelf, my go-to option for books is the Crate & Kids Metal Stacking Storage Bin. It’s sturdy, keeps books organized, and feels polished. As my daughter gets older, I have my eye on Happy Beds for their smart storage solutions. She doesn’t have a big bedroom, so this type of built-in storage saves precious floor space for a reading nook.
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Now, instead of contending with a lengthy cleanup of the playroom each day, I do a less-than-five-minute sweep to get everything back to its designated place. And, even better, my daughter now knows where all of her different toys belong and is engaging with a wider range of her toys than she ever has before. Win-win!
