Toy Storage

We have a large basement and three kids. Naturally, the toys migrated to the carpet of least resistance. A couple of trips to IKEA, and you have shelves and bins as far as the eye could see.

Things stayed that way for about 8 months. I loved the bins because everything had a place and looked put away. But what I've realized is my kids would not pull out a single bin to play with what was inside. Loads of toys sat untouched while the few that couldn't be binned were played with to boredom. 

So this week the bins went into storage, along with about 30% of their toys. I really, really wanted to say 50% here but it just didn't happen. Mason still needs some of his own age-appropriate toys. 

The shelving units stayed, as did any toys that fit reasonably on the shelves. For little toys I had two options.

Walmart has little milk crate baskets for $1.50 each, so little things that made sense to go on a shelf went in those. 

I also went the Pinterest-says-I-can-store-anything-in-shoe-organizer route. This made sense for items too big for a shelf that also had little pieces. 

This is a standard over-the-door shoe rack from Walmart. I cut it into thirds, giving me two rows of four pockets per section. Over the rough edge I put carpet tape for strength, and pretty duct tape for style. (ha!) Scissors clipped some slits and I wove Dollar Tree clothesline through the tops. 3M hooks keep it on the wall. 

Suddenly they want to go in the basement and they spend a lot more time playing with each toy before moving on. Toys that had been buried beneath junk (think fast food meal toys) are really fun again!