Where We *Hide* the Kids' Toys — The Grit and Polish

THE FARMHOUSE

A few people have asked me this question lately: where are all your kids toys?! And the answer is…in our living room! We don’t have a play room so our living room does double duty and has to function for all of us. So today I thought I’d show you around into the nooks and cabinets where we keep the kid’s stuff.

psst: I’m sharing photos mostly from this summer. You can find sources here. The striped pillows were borrowed for a photo shoot but came from here.

Here’s the thing, we have kids (aged 4, 6, and 8) and we want them to be happy at home too. That means messes and toys and the whole deal. We’ve tried to balance the entropy that comes with active little bodies with my desire for a tidy home at all times. Because what is a home for if not to play and grow in anyway, right?!

The way we’ve found to live harmoniously in this room - both kids and adults - is with storage and toy zones Let me show you where every last kid toy/book/stuffy is in this room, starting with the things in plain sight…

This is the view of the living room from the entryway. And in that back left corner hides Daphne’s play house. I call it Daphne’s because Nana and Papa gave it to her for Christmas last year, but Brooks, our 6-year-old, plays with it too.

It works really well here because the kids have plenty of room to play with it, but it’s hidden from view by the chair. So we adults don’t have to see it unless we’re standing in the room.

Next up are the legos on the corner table. This table came from my great-grandmother and I bet she’d love seeing it so well used. We put it here as a puzzle table (which tends to happen around the holidays) but there’s almost always an ongoing lego build scattered around the table top.

We also rotate kids books in here, mostly stacked on the tables. That white chair next to the game table is our 8-year-old’s favorite spot to grab a book and read. Many a Magic Tree Houses and Harry Potter’s have been finished right here.

The toys we don’t leave out (most of them) are stored in a large armoire just to the left of the door. This is the kid’s domain but we do keep a bit organized with bins - one for dinosaurs and animals, one for cars, one for mega blocks, etc. And the magnatiles (BTW the BEST kids toys!) stay out in the basket tucked next to the armoire.

We don’t show messy rooms on Instagram (my rule of thumb - if it’s too messy to invite someone in, then it’s too messy to invite them in online too), but that doesn’t mean our house is never messy. Do our kids make a giant mess of the living room? On the daily! Especially in the summer when they’re home all day. I snapped this photo in August when I passed by…