Tag: playroom

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Jen's reno Kids Rooms

Playroom storage ideas: what we used in ours and why

As promised in yesterday’s playroom reveal post, today I’m giving you a closer look at exactly what we used to get the storage sorted and why it works so well. It really is a storage dream now!

The heroes of this room are the IKEA TROFAST units. We have used both the regular version and the wall-mounted version. I opted for all-white units and all-white plastic boxes you buy separately, but there are many combinations, colours and options available.

The units themselves come in either white (like ours), black or light stained solid pine. I like the look of the pine ones too, but ultimately, the white version was more suited to our home. Because I knew there’d be plenty of colour from toys, rugs and art, I also wanted to keep the base as simple as possible to avoid it being too visually busy. There are several shapes and sizes of TROFAST units available so it’s a very flexible system.

The boxes (or drawers) are plastic and come in loads of colourful options but again, I knew there’d be enough colour from everything else and I’m still glad I chose all-white. They come in three different sizes. All the units come with the same plastic guide rails (or drawer runners) and the beauty is that you can choose which size boxes work for you. You’ll see we have got some with three large boxes each and some with three medium and three small boxes each. Should your storage needs change later, you can simply go and buy different boxes (from $4). Or you can change colours for a completely different look. I took great satisfaction in using a DYMO labeller to dictate what each one was for! This makes packing away so much easier and quicker!

I am IN LOVE with these affordable units ($126 each in this combination including the boxes). The plastic boxes are hardy and they’re easy for the boys to pull out (and for Sebastian, if not Charlie, to put back in). You can bring the box to the toys, which makes tidying up a lot quicker than if you were having to take all the toys (knowing kids, one by painfully slow one) to a fixed drawer. The units are hardy (they’ve already been given a workout by the boys, who aren’t the most graceful) and I can confirm that colouring pencil wipes off the top with Windex. They’re at just the right height for the kids to be able to put their own stuff away (sometimes!) and to also play with toys on the top of them. I’ve started leaving different toys out on the top every day to invite them to play with them.

You’ll see we have also used two of the wall-mounted versions of the TROFAST and this is to keep things out of Charlie’s reach, specifically paint, craft supplies and Lego! As an added bonus, we can display some of Sebastian’s favourite Lego trains rather than have to hide them all away.

We chose to put books up high in the FLISAT shelves (which look so lovely in solid timber) because Charlie has zero respect (yet boundless enthusiasm) for books and they were all getting ripped and scribbled on! It’s great that they’re still facing cover-out and easy to pick from. And they’re nice decoration as an added bonus. We store Charlie’s less vulnerable board books in the play kitchen (from Pottery Barn Kids).

IKEA have a great range of kids’ tables and chairs and the FLISAT table and stools appealed firstly for their aesthetics, and then for the table’s extra (and fun) storage inside. Underneath we have the wipe-clean Grace & Maggie Baby Driver Boho memory foam mat, which is reversible and has a road on the flip side. This means they can eat at this table or sit on the mat having a snack.

One mat is never enough for kids, and our other favourite is this incredible IVI Interactive Play Rug from Urban Baby. The boys have not stopped driving cars around it, creating airports and mini cities, since we got it.

Something we always had trouble with hiding (I mean storing!) were our extra large vehicles (think Tonka garbage trucks!) and I found a great solution for these in the STUVA/FRITIDS bench. The drawer part is on castors and pulls out really easily and safely for the kids.

Both our boys love music, and telling Google what songs to play (via Spotify) so we love our new SYMFONISK WiFi speaker (a collab between IKEA and Sonos) which is wall-mounted below their TV. It’s also designed to sit neatly on a bookshelf without the bracket, or you can even mount it by your bedside and use it as somewhere to pop your book, glasses and other essentials! I love this kind of smart and practical design and it’s a great price too, from $149 (also comes in black).

So, that’;s my roundup of the main elements in this room and why they work so well for us. I hope you found it useful if you’re struggling with toy storage too.

Our new top tip for flatpack assembly without risk of divorce is to get an Allen key attachment (also known as hex bit) for your drill. SO MUCH QUICKER. You’re welcome!

If you have any questions about any of the products in our playroom, please drop a question in the comments below!

Disclosure: Items in this post were gifted by IKEA.

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Jen's reno Kids Rooms

Playroom ideas: revealing a room I’ve never shown you!

Welcome to our new and improved playroom! I’m finally proud of this room, but let me tell you how we got to this point!

It’s almost three years since we bought our “nanna house” and as we’ve ticked off transforming it bit by bit, I’ve never really shared the playroom with you and there’s a reason why! Before I tell you why I came to loathe it, let me first tell you how much I also love the fact we have one!

Having a playroom is the ultimate luxury for a mum of two boys who is also a bit of a neatfreak (that’s me, if you hadn’t guessed). I love my home to be tidy at all times (just don’t go into the master bedroom unannounced as that’s where it all comes undone!). I also have two energetic boys with lots of toys and I want them to have fun and to be able to pull things out and not get all antsy about it because life’s too short and I’m not going to be that mum.

When we saw this house, with its “family room” off the living room, we didn’t hesitate to earmark it as the playroom, and that was when we only had one toddler! Another huge bonus is that the boys’ bedrooms are only for getting dressed, reading and sleeping and, as such, they stay really tidy! So at least I am dealing with just one messy room, not three!

Fast forward to now having two kids and there are even more toys and a 16-month-old who loves to pull everything out and is too young to know how (or want to) tidy up his mess. Things were reaching a peak level of chaos in the playroom, with nightly tidy-ups a battle with the eldest and me only being able to cope because we have doors between the living room and toy town crazy, which meant I could at least hide it!

But the reality of our home is that those doors are always open so we can keep an eye on the boys and interact with them while they do their thing and we do ours, frequently crossing back and forth into each other’s spaces. And we love that we can do that.

We can now leave these shutter doors from the living room to the playroom open a lot more!

But the mess. Oh, it was an eyesore! We had a lot of baskets with stuff chucked in them. We had one large inherited (from Damian’s room at his parents’ house!) IKEA Expedit (now Kallax) unit full of felt boxes. We started off with different boxes for specific things, but as they weren’t easily identifiable or labelled, we soon ended up in a position where any old thing ended up anywhere, just to get it off the floor. And the toys need regularly removing from the floor so I can deal with the crumbs. Don’t get me started on wandering children with snacks! Every few months I’d say “enough!” and have a declutter and sort out. But it never lasted long.

Adding Charlie to the mix (particularly when he started walking a few months ago) made everything so much worse. Everyone told me you couldn’t have a nice or tidy playroom and that there was no point trying to improve it. And I probably listened for a while, which is unusual for me because I believe everything can look nice (if not perfect) and you can have nice things, even with kids. And I suppose there’s part of me that felt bad about wanting their room to be pleasing to me as well as them, like that was a bit selfish.

But do you know what, it’s okay to want organisation which makes tidying up and keeping things tidy easier. It’s way less stressful having a room that doesn’t look a right mess from your living room all the time. And Sebastian (Charlie’s too young to care!) really loves how his new room looks and feels and how easy it is to find what he wants to play with.  I’m actually surprised at quite how much of a difference this new playroom has made to our stress levels, and that includes things like the nightly nag to put the toys away before bed.

The room also looks so much bigger and nicer. Having all the storage at the same, kid-friendly height along the back wall, gives the impression of more space. An unexpected bonus of the IKEA TROFAST units is that they’re the perfect height for the boys to play cars or draw at, which I’d never considered.

There’s so much more to say about the playroom that I’ve decided to split this into two posts, and, in part 2, I tell you exactly what we picked for the room and why it works so well for the kids (and us!).

Thanks to IKEA, who collaborated with me to finally get the storage and organisation under control in this room!

See more of our home | Charlie’s nursery | Our master bedroom

Photography: Jacqui Turk

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Expert Tips Homewares RENO ADDICT

Interiors Addict reno: choosing carpet

Sponsored by CarpetCall

In our new house, we decided we would in fact like carpet in our bedrooms. While we are long time fans of hard flooring and had an oak-look floating floor through our last home, there’s just something about stepping out of bed in the morning onto lovely soft carpet! We always slightly regretted not having the bedrooms carpeted last time, so this time we did it, and the playroom too (did I mention we have a playroom? BEST EVER!).

Our playroom. Of course it isn’t usually this tidy but rest assured I will never STYLE this room for you because it’s meant to be fun and practical and somewhere to shut the door on the mess, so it doesn’t need to look good to grown ups!

The playroom was previously cork floor! When was the last time you saw that, eh?! And while it is probably the perfect flooring for kids to play (and spill) on, it doesn’t exactly look beautiful!

So with a toddler in mind, we obviously wanted a carpet that was super forgiving and stain resistant. But it had to look and feel nice too.

We chose the Lasting Impressions carpet in Cloud (a mid grey) and we’re really happy with it. Everyone who has been to visit has commented on it too. It feels lovely when you step out of bed onto it, Seb just loves lying on it playing cars and any spills or sticky marks in the playroom have been very easily removed. In fact, this has probably made me a little too relaxed about what food I let him wander in there with!

A representative from CarpetCall came out to see us and measure up with a boot full of samples (this is a free service) and I thought I’d share a few things I learnt about choosing carpet:

  • It sounds simple but you need to select carpet in the rooms where it will be laid. You can’t do this in store or online. It’s a bit like the rule about getting a tester pot before you commit to painting a whole room (oh, I’ve made this mistake now and I’ll be blogging about it soon!). That’s why it’s great if the carpet store comes out to you. Lighting and your interior colour scheme and style will all impact how the carpet looks in your home which could be completely different to how it looks in the showroom.
  • Before this step, you can start to get an idea of what’s available by using an online tool like CarpetCall’s Room Visualiser. This may help you choose samples you’d like to see in your home.
  • There’s a lot of lingo involved with carpets! They’re manufactured in different ways to give different looks and feels. The main types are level loop pile, multi-level loop pile, cut pile (the most commonly used in Australian homes), tip sheared pile, cut and loop and Axminster and Winton Wool (the latter being the creme de la creme of the carpet world).
  • You have two main choices of material: wool or synthetic (or a combo of the two). Wool is more expensive, many would say looks and feels better and of course it’s a natural material. It does shed though, and it’s not as forgiving as a synthetic carpet. I’ve owned a large cream rug so I know. And yeah, won’t be doing that again with a toddler…
  • Synthetic (nylon/polypropolene) carpets are water-resistant, stain-resistant and durable. Some say nylon carpets can look just as good as wool.
  • Using a good quality vacuum cleaner with the correct attachment designed for carpet will make a different to how your flooring looks and lasts.
  • You should have your carpet steam cleaned no less than once every two years (CarpetCall recommend using professionals rather than DIY-ing).

Book your free in-home measure and quote with CarpetCall today.