52 Organization Projects week 5

We are finally done with our BIG project (well, mostly done, I still have to sew the cover for the cushion and Erik has to add the toe kick). The organization - or lack there of- in our play room has bugged me since we moved into this house a year ago. We had this toy shelf that Erik built to fit in a nook in our old house, but it stuck out like a sore thumb in this house and the toys seemed to be constantly overflowing onto the floor. We had no where to store all of J's soft animals and the placement of things was just odd. Another problem was J's books. We had this little bookshelf that was over flowing and J couldn't get the books back on it once she took them off so the floor in front of the bookcase was constantly littered with books. So, over the course of the year, Erik and I have tried to come up with a plan that would work for this room. We finally decided on a built in so I designed what I wanted and he turned my design into a reality. We bought pre-made cabinets from our local hardware store and he made the top bookshelves from scratch. Now most of J's toys fit in the cupboards - the ones that don't will be rotated in every few months - her soft animals all fit under the window seat and there's plenty of room for her books. {we go through the toys every year right before Christmas and all the girl toys J doesn't play with anymore get donated and the neutral ones - that the boys will play with when they get bigger - get put in the storage room} To help keep the books tidy, we're running it like a "library". She has a basket of books that sits on the window seat and each week we will swap the books out that way she can easily but the books away when she's done reading. The bench that was next to the railing in the original picture is a toy box that my Grandpa W. made when I was a little girl. It now sits in our entryway so we have a place to sit when taking our shoes off and it holds extra blankets for downstairs. The small bench that we previously had downstairs to hold blankets is now upstairs where J's old bookcase was and it holds her extra blankets and her doll blankets.

The other half of the playroom is my office and I love the playroom half so much now it's motivated me to work on organizing and cleaning out my office. Hopefully I'll be able to get it finished up for next weeks post. But if I don't, it's because I've been spending my time curled up on the window seat with a good book.