The kids rule our house. I love that they have a lot of play nooks and spaces, especially since our yard is so small. We DO, however, try to keep our living room toy free. It helps to have the play room. Since the weather has cooled, the kids have ditched the play room and prefer the
play porch, which I shared with you last time. I LOVE that they are out there so much, playing in the fresh air after being cooped up a lot of our HOT Summer. But, the play room was a disaster! They'd run in long enough to rummage around baskets, find what they were looking for, and then race back outside, leaving the rummaged mess behind. So, today the kids and I tackled the play room and gave it an update. Again, like when we redid the
boys' room, I thought I'd share it with you the 30 seconds it actually looked like this. :)
This room is an odd little space. And so, it fits our odd little house well. Its a long hallway of a room, with window spaces that look into our bedroom! Yep, kinda weird. It used to be a porch, and the master bedroom's windows looked out over the porch. But the last owners decided to enclose it.
Today, the kids and I decided to arrange the play room like a little house. As you walk in, Lissy's kitchen, which her Daddy made her, is on your right.
We put a double sided shelf next to the kitchen for a pantry.
I love this little shelf. I found it a few months back at the thrift store.
Across from the kitchen is the dinning room, which was a little hand me down score.
On the same wall as the dinning room are two large black bookcases for storing toys, books, and games. There's also a dresser which houses all the dress up clothes. This dresser was mine as a child and before that, belonged to my great grandparents!
On the other side of that double sided shelf, Kian's toys sit. Its just the right height so that he can stand and play. And on the same wall, we set up a doll clothes washing area with a scrub board and a line. They have a little line on the front porch and I often fill a tub of water so they can wash the doll diapers for real, but I thought it would be fun to fill this empty space with an indoor pretend wash area for when its just too cold to play on the front porch in water.
At the end of the line drying area sits the boys' toy box, which we moved out of their room. It now houses our HUGE wooden block collection. Behind the box I made a snug little bed. The kids LOVED this addition. We used to actually have a cool indoor swing hanging in this area, but it was moved out onto the play porch a month ago.
Across from the snug little bed, is the baby's bed. I love that little pink cradle. It was thrifted, I think, before I even had kids. And I saved it for years before Felicity came.
I tried to leave lots of floor space to spread cars, puzzles, games, and animals out.
Lissy used the room to instantly change baby Carrie's diaper. ;)
The play room has a slider at the end which leads out to the backyard. Very convenient for when one must go collect apples off the tree to bring back into their play kitchen for cooking.
And you'll often find Denver out there sleeping in the sun, oblivious to all the noise and happy chaos.
So that's our playroom.
