Toy Room Rescue.

When I showed My Beloved the photo I have included below he was horrified! You can't put that in your blog! He said. Why not? I asked him. Because look at the mess! Well I said, if anyone out there has a toy room and 7 kids (truth be told any kids) they KNOW what the toy room looks like after it has been played with and mum, or dad for that matter, does not get them to clean their mess.... and if they don't. Well then, I doubt they will be reading it!

You will have to excuse my smiling face... it is difficult to take a web cam pic whist fighting off a 2 (3 this Friday) yr old who just wants to 'see it'. The picture below this one is even more unappealing! But gives you a better idea of how narrow the room is, it is basically 4m long x 2.4m wide. So seven kids worth of toys,in fact if we were truthful, it is really only five kids worth of toys. The bigger two don't have toys anymore. So the FIVE kids worth of toys don't have many places to call home in this size room... it does however keep the mess OUT OF THE MAIN PARTS OF THE HOUSE!

I had not planned on doing anything other then throwing the toys back in their tubs,boxes and shelves, but as I looked at it all I remembered the playroom mum had made for us just outside our bedroom door when I was a kid. It was effectively a cement slab with a roof over it, but we had a kitchen, bedroom(s) and lounge area there.

So to try and recreate the idea, only in a MUCH smaller area, and keeping in mind it is really only the three younger girls and Mr Cheeky who use it. I made a 'sitting' area next to the windows so in winter it will be nice and warm... summer? Well I think the kids will be outside under the sprinkler instead of inside. So the oven like temperatures shouldn't be too much of a problem.

Opposite the windows I made the 'kitchen' and 'bedroom' area. Between that is a rubber jigsaw play mats I picked up from a garage sale for a couple of dollars. They can pull out the dolls houses and barbies and play there without the cold tiles making them uncomfortable.

The barbies and doll houses are right in the corner between the two 'areas' so any toy mess will stay there. Bahahahahahahahaha I know, I know. Delusional! But without hope you have got nothing! ;p

The bookshelf holds some books and a basket of colouring books up high and on the middle shelf I decided I would devote it to the knitted dolls my mother, grandmother and great grandmother had knitted (some were mine when I was little, the rest were made for the kids by their Great Nan) 

At the halfway mark I had just managed to MOST of Mr Cheeky's stuff in the shelves and milk crates and boxes. but there was still a big chunk in the middle of the room that needed work. (Not to mention washing the doors and windows.)

I even made an outdoor 'parking bay' for the 'outside' toys. It was by then of course I realised I had an hour before the kids were home and I had washing to hang out,to bring in and put away. So I shut the door and said. 'Stuff that!' I will do the rest tomorrow! And I will, hopefully with better pictures as I think I have seriously kinked my neck trying to take these pictures with the webcam... ouch.