Wednesday, November 23, 2011

The Nooks and Crannies (and some Christmas ideas)

It's important to me to have a balance in my home, not a Feng Shui balance but a balance between the kids having art supplies and toys accessible and Brian and I have the clean, calm space that we crave. I've become the master of disguise when it comes to hiding toys here. 

We're lucky that our kitchen currently has a ton of storage space. It doesn't matter what size of a home you have doesn't everyone always end up in the kitchen? I spend a LOT of time there between lunch boxes, meals, meal planning and cleaning and my kids just gravitate to wherever I am...or maybe just wherever the food is.

We have one drawer with lots of craft supplies, doodle books, paints, markers, chalk and chalkboards, dry erase boards, stickers...this is the go to drawer when my kids hear me say, "Stop torturing your sister and find something to do!!"

Directly below that is a cabinet with play doh, clay, and a rotation of board games. Does everyone have Busy Town the Richard Scarry game? If not, get it. We LOVE it, instead of playing against one another you are playing with each other against the pigs that are trying to eat your picnic food. It's fun and everyone ends up laughing at the end.
What about Camelot Jr? It's a logic game, encourages solo play and the kids enjoy it.


This one portion of our island has open shelving. The bottom shelf usually holds a) the seasonal books that I rotate during the year (currently fall and Thanksgiving) and b) library books because we just have to keep those separate or we loose them. There is usually someone sitting on the floor here reading. I love to see my kids reading, the only problem is that this is directly in front of my refrigerator. It has gotten to the point where I will go to get something and the fridge door will push my kid across the wood floor--they don't even flinch. 

I like to have plates accessible to the kids. They can set the table or help prepare their own meal this way. This is Jack's favorite drawer now, only because we finally put a child lock on the pots and pans drawer.

We have three boxes seats of these things in our family room. We use them as seating when we have a large crowd but we use them daily to hold blocks, toys and diapers. Love that the kids can just toss all the mess in here and the room is clean.


Kate keeps some of her toys in baskets and buckets under her bed. This is the side away from her room door. There have been days that the floor between her bed and her dollhouse is completely COVERED in toys but I didn't realize it. You can't see this space from her doorway.

The basement houses the majority of our toys. These IKEA bookcases are great for holding lots of toys. Each of the baskets hold a different type of block: wooden block and train stuff, bristle blocks, big legos...


There you have it. A few of the nooks and crannies in the house that hide all the clutter that comes with having three kids!

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