We have lived in our home for nearly four and a half years and in that time our bonus room has been re-done to fit our needs about as many times. It has been yellow, it has been turquoise, and back in March of 2009 y’all helped me land on painting it “happy camper” green for a while and we loved it!
After green we went to the “salt glaze” that it is now, and in January 2011 Ryan got a hair to build a wall across the middle of the awkwardly-giant room to create a fourth bedroom (currently occupied by our college boarder/nanny, Audrey) and to make transfer our bonus room from a family room into a proper play space.
We knew we wanted lots of floor space. I wanted all of our beautiful, fun toys to be on display and within reach so that our kids and their friends wouldn’t have to climb or dig for what they wanted. I needed order – I wanted everything to have a place and to make sense spatially. Ohhh, I have fun with this kind of thing!
Well, Ryan finally gave me the go-ahead back in February to get it just how I wanted it. And it took me weeks and weeks to research and pick the storage that would suit the room best. And the ironic thing about it all? Everything arrived and was overflowing our entryway the night we flew home from Boston with a job offer and a move date.
I seriously considered sending everything back without opening it up, but I couldn’t stand the thought of not seeing it all finished after all my hard work. And, we all know that in the end, we didn’t move to Boston and instead decided to stay put where we are. So it worked out!
Anyway… here we are! All finished (minus a bit of wall art that is yet to arrive) and LOVING this happy play space for the kids. I am including a resource list at the bottom for anything you might ask about.
And without further ado,
a tour of the play room:
the view from Audrey’s room. the “o” and “h” are craft letters from Jo-Ann’s, wrapped in grey yarn and dressed up for a boy and a girl. I have a post ready to roll with the tutorial for these – stay tuned! also, see that tiny door on the far left of the photo? that’s “the clubhouse” – a kitchen/play house that we finished a few years ago for the kids for Christmas.
door (and wall) on the left compliments of yours truly! door on the right leads to the upstairs hall. notice the pretty wall cards we have hanging now where we sometimes hang photos or artwork – they were a birthday gift from Claire to Hazel. oh, and the flea market ball bin serves well to contain all of Oliver’s light sabers and sports equipment.
this is a good view of the built-ins, which are newly covered. They used to be open and house a television and I hated not being able to close away the mess. We had an amazing craftsman install custom window shutters for the space and now they neatly house all our stuff AND we don’t have to look at it!
just a touch of chevron, of course. and some happy toys and books – each of which tells a story for me.
the wide blue tub in the bottom right photo is where all of the magic happens for Oliver. It’s super wide and shallow and it houses all of his Legos. Super easy to swish things around in there to find the piece he needs, and I made the shelf height just right so it doesn’t waste space. Also, we have four of these rugby striped baskets (2 on each of the outside sections of the built-ins). They hold babies and dolls on one side for Hazel, dress up clothes and weapons on the other side for Oliver.
this is a good view of the built-ins from “the clubhouse”. also, of Oliver jumping for joy! the bottom left photo is the left section of the built-ins and it houses all of our games, Hazel’s babies and stuffed animals, and the middle section is carefully organized with colored storage boxes – all the toys that needed to be stored separately go here, like Oliver’s army men, Hazels magnetic doll set, her duplo blocks, etc. All the puzzles are in big Ziploc bags in big bins in the back, too.
a birdseye view of the lego bin. and a happy view of a cute kid drawing a picture of a flamingo to send to his Granddad.
one thing we knew we definitely wanted was a giant laminated map of the world in the playroom. we love to talk about who we love and where they live – we can point to ‘Mama M’ in China, Uncle Chris in Australia, where Mosey and Gusty were born in Ethiopia, etc. It’s already been such a fun addition to the room!
We hope you enjoyed our tour! Below is a list of where you can find many of the things you see above. If you don’t see something listed let me know and I’ll see if I have an answer.
The Land of Nod:
cute locker baskets (in the squares on the shelves)
shallow blue tub (for legos)
Merrily we stroll along (wooden stroller with red/white gingham)
doll in the stroller with the red clothes (discontinued)
Container Store:
Rugby stripe storage bins – the ones on the bottom shelves
Ikea:
Lillberg rocker (discontinued)
Expedit shelving (two 2×4 units, on their sides, plus one 2×2 unit on the end)
magazine files for school & coloring books
Pottery Barn Kids:
Amazon:
Fabric:
Etsy:
Other:
Jenny Lind white table & yellow chairs: yard sale, painted white and pencil
Wall grid – trellis boards painted lagoon
Wall Cards – Dwell Studio
Legos – everywhere
Hazel & Oliver: not for sale.
Thanks for the inspiration. I love the amount of light your play room gets. We are going to be finishing a portion of our basement to turn into a play room so I will definitely be checking back. Unfortunately down there will be all artificial light which makes my eyes go bonkers. =)
Hey Chrsitina – glad you like it! My advice on lighting: if you can’t get natural lighting (which of course we don’t get at night time!), avoid harsh overhead lights. Go with accent lights like floor or table lamps. My friend Katie actually did wall-mounted lamps in her play room so she wouldn’t have to worry about cords or bumping tables and that has worked out beautifully (and is super cute!).
I absolutely love your style and your organizational sense. I don’t have kids yet, but seeing your ability to stay organized with two active kids gives me hope. So many moms tell me all of the organizing goes down the drain, but I don’t want it to!
My question is how on earth do you keep things looking so nice with the little ones playing all day? Do they get to play with one thing at a time and then have to clean up after themselves? or do you tidy everything at the end of the day? How does that work?
Things do get messy, but that’s the whole beauty of everything having a specific place! It makes clean up time quick and easy for everyone. Sometimes I send Oliver upstairs to pick-up before dinner or bedtime and a lot of the time either Ryan or I will go upstairs with him to facilitate.
Surprisingly, nobody things to just swipe everything off of the shelves and make a huge mess.
Our rule isn’t that they can only play with one toy at a time, but that we’d like them to put away toys when they’re finished with them. Sometimes it’s fun to use your cars and lincoln logs and dolls all at once and we don’t want to rule that out.
And of course, these are all ideals. There are days (and Audrey can attest to this as she walks through the play room to get to her bedroom) that the place is a disaster because no one put anything away all day or they’ve had friends over who want to get everything out. Still, having a place (in reach) for everything makes clean up time less daunting for all of us!
Oh man! What a beautiful playroom. That Valco doll stroller is getting added to my wish list for sure :)
Hey Maura! Thanks! We love that baby stroller – I picked it out in a cute toy store in Boston for Hazel’s 2nd birthday gift. They had pink too, but I like the b/w better, plus it won’t show dirt!
I want to see the clubhouse! I imagine it to be super cute! And did you ever do a post on what you were working on for Audrey’s room? I just love this room. So inspirational!
Sure! I’ll try to post photos of the clubhouse next week! I haven’t posted photos yet because it’s dark in there without natural lighting, but no biggie- glad to share!
And no, haven’t shared Audrey’s room yet either! We have things we’ve been planning to do with it since August (and so I’ve waited to share). But now we’re about 6 weeks away from her school year being over, so I’m guessing we might not get around to those things. I should shoot it while she’s still here!
Ahh! I want to come back and play! It turned out so great. You should come to Maryland and redesign the basement I live in :D
Great minds think alike, my friend! I just hung an “&” that I covered with yarn in the twins’ room and just hung a world map in the boys room… we could so be neighbors. :-) (But then we would have similar things, so I guess that wouldn’t be so cool. :-))
Beautiful playroom. It reminds me of our playroom or our three littles a bit, mostly in the concept. We also have the toys on low shelves and organized in bins so that they’re accessible to everyone, but still organized and neat (at times).
1. I’m ordering that map right now! I’ve been looking for a good laminated map to put in the playroom, as we’ve had a few get destroyed by grabby little hands.
2. I love the Tubtrug for the Legos. We have a few of those for laundry, but I may need to consider getting the shallow one for my 4 year old as his Lego collection grows.
3. I need to find a little table and chairs that are simple and cute like yours. My grandma heard from my mom that I was looking for one, and she bought the kids a plastic and vinyl Thomas the Tank Engine set to put in the playroom. It was very sweet of her, but not…what I was looking for aesthetically. I’ve been waiting to find the right set, so I can make the Thomas set disappear one night while the kids are sleeping. :-)
Love it! I also love how often you paint. It doesn’t feel like that long ago you were picking out paint colors before going green. I love that – and have to thank you, it eases my guilt in how often I change things up, myself!! :)
I have lego lovers – that shallow blue bin is wonderful!! We currently have 2 huge flat under-bed storage containers that are super low & big for that swishing around to find the right piece factor like you mentioned- but they’re not that handy or cute.
Thanks for sharing – everything you is lovely! We remodeled our kitchen this past year, and are just completing a laundry room gutting & overhaul.. I have all these intentions to blog & share them, but it’s funny how it gets put off. Takes time to compose a post like this!!