A Toy Storage Solution That Can Grow With the Kids

The holidays are over and there are SO MANY new toys! It’s a perfect time to purge and donate toys that kids have outgrown, and to come up with a new toy storage plan that will grow with the kids!

There are a ton of toy organizer options out there, but to stand the test of time, you need to find a toy organizer that is flexible enough to change with the size, shape and quantity of the toys through the years.

Around this time last year, I got a call from a friend who said her son’s toys were taking over their family room and she needed help! Putting the toys “away” meant stashing them all behind the couches and chairs on either side of the room, but they really weren’t hidden and they definitely weren’t organized. It was causing stress for the whole family!

I went over to see if I could help, and we walked around together looking for a better place to store and organize the toys. She showed me a big coat closet positioned between the entry way and the family room. There wasn’t much in it other than a few cleaning supplies and some misc boxes and cords… where were all the coats, I asked?

It turns out that they also had a smaller coat closet in the mudroom that was a bit chaotic, but had plenty of potential to serve the family’s needs. With a little work, I helped them reorganized the small coat closet.

Once the small mud room coat closet was functioning well for the whole family, and we were confident that the larger coat closet wasn’t needed for coats, she was able to clear out the big closet, getting rid of what was not needed and finding a new home for the vacuum.

I then put together a new plan for this closet that would provide plenty of storage for all their son’s current toys, as well as the flexibility to adapt with new toys in the future. Keeping in mind that this closet might not always be used for toys, we decided to keep the existing shelf and closet rod in place so it could easily be converted back to a coat closet in the future. We felt like this was especially important for maintaining the potential resale value of the house.