Over the past few weeks, we've been cleaning, purging and rearranging our house to accommodate the needs of an adventurous, curious, playful little toddler. We have been able to find (and are still finding) tons of stuff that we can get rid of, and our house is substantially cleaner than it was a month ago. The biggest thing we have done so far is creating Jeffrey's own little corner of the house. It's always where his toys were stored, but we wanted a better option for him. We decided to use our old entertainment center (the Expedit for IKEA) instead of selling it, which turned out to be an amazing idea! Jeffrey can now see and access a good portion of his toys so that he can pick and choose exactly what he wants to play with. I no longer choose a group of toys that he'll have for the week; the decisions are all on him now. Surprisingly, it keeps the house much cleaner. Plus, each toy having its own little spot makes cleaning up each night a breeze. Along with his new play center, we transformed a walk in closet that we have just around the corner from it into a play area for him, as well. It has his toy chest (filled with blankets), the storage unit from Target, and the rest of his toys. No toy is packed away. He has too many right now, but we'll be removing some soon to consign. Oh, and in case you're wondering, all of the toys that make noise (of any kind) are in the closet. Just in case it needs to be closed ;)
What does Jeffrey think of all of this? He LOVES it. It's been a few weeks, and he knows where everything is. It's super easy to tell which toys are his favorites now.
We've also had to move one of our couches since he can climb up on to them so well. It was placed just so so that he would be able to climb onto our kitchen island. No good. His riding toys and his Anywhere chair hang out there now. Just across the room from his play table.
Our house has definitely become a house where a toddler lives.
In case you're curious, here is our new toddler organizational play area:
3 comments:
Love that big toy setup! We have two shelves (kind of like the one in your closet) one for each child. Plus toys in the bedrooms and everywhere else, LOL!
That looks awesome!
Hubby and I were just talking about how we need to do this! Thanks for sharing this helps us try to figure out how we are going to organize Carter's toys in our house.
Post a Comment