Anatomy of a Playroom

Some of us at 4real are discussing how best to finish a basement, and the conversation has turned to organization and storage. Having just finished creating a playroom for my son out of half of our basement family room, I thought I would share the ways in which I chose to showcase and organize his multitude of toys and educational "thingies."

Here is an overall view of the play area:


In the lower right corner, you can see the sofa that divides the "bowling alley" (as I call the family room because it runs the entire width of our townhouse yet is probably less than 10 feet deep) in half with the white bookshelf backed up to it -- that's serving as the 4th "wall" of the play space. I took the picture standing in the TV watching area, which contains the couch, a coffee table and the TV unit (among other clutter I'm choosing not to show you at the moment).

Here is a closer look at the toy/book storage and reading area:


I found this great organizational shelving unit at Michael's Arts and Crafts for $49.99. A lot of my friends and acquaintances have similar shelves to organize kids' toys, but I like this one because it has book storage in the top, and we love books around this house!

The fish was a gift from my best friend's husband, an avid (and I mean AVID) fisherman. The painting is a rendering of the Ark by my 2 1/2 year old son. Tucked into the space beside the bookshelf is a collapsible play tunnel and two huge art and construction paper pads.

Here is the kitchen and art table area:


Here is a closer look at the art table area, which also contains a small home altar shelf with kid-friendly (read: wooden) rosaries and some favorite images of Our Lord and Our Lady:


And here is the shelf backed up to the sofa where we keep toys that are too big for the toy shelf, along with a small drawer unit for art supplies (excuse the mess on top of the bookshelf, the other half of this room is very much a work in progress and the mess is spilling over):


Hopefully this will help someone.