Area #16: Basement Toy Area

The toy area in the basement used to be an eye sore for me.  Now it makes me smile every time I go through the room.  A while back I moved almost all of our toys into the basement.  It's been nice because I don't have to worry about keeping them cleaned up because if someone stops in they won't see them, and it's not something that I'm stepping over or even seeing every day.  My basement toy area used to look like this:

Elsie hasn't played with the play mat or sat in the swing or the exersaucer (not pictured) for months, yet they have been sitting down here cluttering up the room.   Both the play mat and the exersaucer were borrowed from others, so I just cleaned them up and got them ready to return to their owners.  The swing is now being stored away waiting for my next little niece or nephew to arrive so they can borrow it.  I've discovered that it is a wonderful thing to borrow large baby items.  You use them for such a short time that it doesn't pay to buy them.  And then when the kids are done using it, you just give it back.  It's wonderful.

After getting rid of the unused baby items, adding nails to hang cowboy items, and getting a box to keep the baby doll items, my toy area now looks like this:

You might think it just looks like I picked up the room.  While I did do that, the simple other things that I did are helping to keep this room clean.  I moved the puzzles where Elsie can't reach them so that she doesn't dump them on the floor every time we're down there.  The doll box was huge because those items haven't had a spot yet and always ended up scattered.  Now it's so simple to toss them all in the box and it's something that Evelyn can do.  I have really noticed my toy area 'cleaning itself' and I love walking through the room now and seeing everything still looking neat.