Do your twins have a playroom?

DH and I are thinking of turning our rarely used guest room into a playroom for the boys. I want to make it a fun space for them to play, color, read, listen to music now and as they get older.

What kind of stuff, in terms of furniture, accesories, decor, do you have in your playroom? Any suggestions of "must haves" for a playroom??

Please share if you have any pictures of a playroom!

Thanks!

 

The basement is part playroom for kids/part DH's big screen

We have those colorful bins/shelves you can get at target. Those are must for us!

 

Our playroom is also in the basement along with a family room. We just finished it in the fall and we absolutely love it!!! They have more room down there than upstairs and most of their toys are down there. We painted a magnetic chalkboard on the bottom half of one wall. That is pretty awesome for them. They can draw on the walls and not get in trouble! The other must have is the table and chair set they got for their birthday. They love have tea parties and color there. We had an old dresser downstairs already that we turned into a toy bin for them.

 

Ditto 3/4 of our basement is a finished playroom with all t heir big inside toys as well as our desktop and tv/dvd entertainement center for pnp games etcs. Its big enough that they can ride their trikes in there in the winter. We have toy box, chalk/dry erase board, lots of little people stuff, kid sized table and chairs and bins for playdough, crayons, etc. I love it! Its also our guest room with a trundle bed that opens to a king bed for guests. but that is hardly used so its more of a playroom with a couch and some other tables as well.

 

We have a playroom, but it's nothing fancy. We have a small couch (for adults to sit while watching kids). We have those colorful bins from Target. We also have some cabinets from IKEA to store toys. Everything else in there is a toy (train table, tool bench, kitchen, kids' table). I figure as they get older we can turn it into a play/study area.

 

Our playroom is a separate room in our finished daylight basement. We have a wall full of cubes with bright colored fabric drawers for toy storage, a toy box, and checked rug in bright colors, and the girls table/chairs are in there. DH and I are getting ready to do chalkboard paint on one of the walls and a world map mural on another. And maybe some ABC wallies type things on the wood we have surrouding a pole in that room.

 

For those that have or are planning on doing chalkboard paint, I'd love feedback on that. I was thinking of doing something on one of the walls for drawing with that.

 

Here are some pictures of our playroom/guest room when it was finished last year.

http://i263.photobucket.com/albums/ii143/p...ns/IMG_0056.jpg
http://i263.photobucket.com/albums/ii143/p...ns/IMG_0052.jpg
http://i263.photobucket.com/albums/ii143/p...ns/IMG_0058.jpg
http://i263.photobucket.com/albums/ii143/p...ns/IMG_0059.jpg

 

QUOTE(Babies4Susan @ Feb 4 2008, 06:58 PM) [snapback]605356[/snapback]
Our playroom is a separate room in our finished daylight basement. We have a wall full of cubes with bright colored fabric drawers for toy storage, a toy box, and checked rug in bright colors, and the girls table/chairs are in there. DH and I are getting ready to do chalkboard paint on one of the walls and a world map mural on another. And maybe some ABC wallies type things on the wood we have surrouding a pole in that room.

Your playroom sounds very nice! I would love to see a picture of it. We will do a partial finish basement. This way we will move all of their toys and create a temporary play room. I have to do some homework on how to do chalkboard paint.

Diana w/Rianna and Justin

 

QUOTE(lotus @ Feb 5 2008, 01:53 AM) [snapback]605978[/snapback]
Here are some pictures of our playroom/guest room when it was finished last year.

http://i263.photobucket.com/albums/ii143/p...ns/IMG_0056.jpg
http://i263.photobucket.com/albums/ii143/p...ns/IMG_0052.jpg
http://i263.photobucket.com/albums/ii143/p...ns/IMG_0058.jpg
http://i263.photobucket.com/albums/ii143/p...ns/IMG_0059.jpg

Awesome! Where did you get those drawer and shelves at? I love the string/pin clip for pictures on the wall. Thank you so much for sharing the photos to all of us.

Diana w/Rianna and Justin

 

Our dining room has always been a playroom.

 

QUOTE(lotus @ Feb 5 2008, 12:53 AM) [snapback]605978[/snapback]
Here are some pictures of our playroom/guest room when it was finished last year.

http://i263.photobucket.com/albums/ii143/p...ns/IMG_0056.jpg
http://i263.photobucket.com/albums/ii143/p...ns/IMG_0052.jpg
http://i263.photobucket.com/albums/ii143/p...ns/IMG_0058.jpg
http://i263.photobucket.com/albums/ii143/p...ns/IMG_0059.jpg



OMGosh your shelves are so incredibly neat and organized!

 

I highly recommend the Trofast series of storage furniture from Ikea! Shipping from Ikea is ridiculously expensive, but the products are so cheap that it works out okay in the end. If you have a store nearby, even better.

We have pieces of this in their bedroom and their playroom, and it is all interchangeable...just last week we swapped some out from one room to the other as their needs changed, and it worked great. It is solid wood frames that hold different sizes of plastic storage bins. So we have all their toys and books sorted in bins, and the wood frames provide a place to tuck them away. When they want to play with something, they can either pull a specific toy out, or they take a whole bin out of the shelf.

This stuff has really helped us economically organize their playroom. And the bins come in different colors, so it looks cute also.

One other plus is it is designed for kids, so the frames all come with means to attach them to the wall, so you don't have a tip over problem. (Did anyone else watch Grey's Anatomy a few weeks ago when Bailey's kid got crushed by a bookcase, and then immediately run out and get supplies to attach every piece of furniture in their house to the wall...or was that just us?!)

 

Unfortunately, we do not have an extra room that we could turn in to a playroom for the girls nor do we have a basement and because we are moving and plan on putting our house on the market sometime this spring, we couldn't do anything too permanent and didn't want to buy too much furniture at this time. So, we converted our barely used living room into a make shift playroom for the girls. We took out the tables and lamps so that it's safe for them and with leather couches, it's so easy to clean up though I rarely let them eat in there. Notice that the piece with their tv on it is their old changing table. We had to get creative and the piece turned out to be perfect as it wasn't being used in their room and gave perfect storage for many of their toys.

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I should also note that they have some stuff in our dining room which they now own as well and in our family room but most of their stuff is contained in this room.

Lotus....Your play room is so awesome. I can't wait to have something like that one day for my girls. Just beautiful. Were you by any chance a teacher? It looks very teacherish to me LOL

 

Double-or-nothing and lotus...I'm totally inspired by your photos!

Double-or-nothing, in your first photo, where did you get the book/toy rack/shelf unit? I love it!

Keep the ideas and photos coming, they are giving me and hopefully other a lot of great ideas!

 

I got it at TRU. I believe it was $40 and that included all the plastic bins. The only thing is that I stapled the bottom of the first book holder so that the books could be better seen and it allowed easier access to the toys underneath. It was just a little too long and the girls had a hard time (when I first bought it) seeing what books were inside and it was hard to get the toys underneath when there were books in it.

Actually, I just checked and I don't see that they carry it anymore. But they have some fantastic ones that are similar. I think the one with all bins is actually better and it looks like it will hold a lot more.

 

We also turned our never used spare bedroom into their playroom last year. We also have the trofast system from Ikea (2 of them) and they are wonderful, strong and sturdy! I highly recommend them! They hold all their toys, etc. We have a table and chair set from Pottery Barn kids. I painted the walls a light blue/grey color and put Tinker Bell stencils all over the walls that I bought at Lowe's. We also have a very girlie ceiling fan with light pink, blue, green and yellow colors. I also went to our local school tools store and bought a string system and hung across two walls to hang their pictures and crafts on. Now that the girls really like to color, the table and chairs is a necessity as they love to sit and color.

Good luck and have fun!

 

We turned our dining room into a playroom. We did not change the wall colors or rugs because we want them to blend with the rest of the house. But have lots of storage and they have a matching primary color theme.

Playroom 1

Playroom 2

 

QUOTE(BridgePort @ Feb 5 2008, 12:17 PM) [snapback]606595[/snapback]
I highly recommend the Trofast series of storage furniture from Ikea! Shipping from Ikea is ridiculously expensive, but the products are so cheap that it works out okay in the end. If you have a store nearby, even better.

We have pieces of this in their bedroom and their playroom, and it is all interchangeable...just last week we swapped some out from one room to the other as their needs changed, and it worked great. It is solid wood frames that hold different sizes of plastic storage bins. So we have all their toys and books sorted in bins, and the wood frames provide a place to tuck them away. When they want to play with something, they can either pull a specific toy out, or they take a whole bin out of the shelf.

This stuff has really helped us economically organize their playroom. And the bins come in different colors, so it looks cute also.

One other plus is it is designed for kids, so the frames all come with means to attach them to the wall, so you don't have a tip over problem. (Did anyone else watch Grey's Anatomy a few weeks ago when Bailey's kid got crushed by a bookcase, and then immediately run out and get supplies to attach every piece of furniture in their house to the wall...or was that just us?!)



Here's a slideshow of our playroom with the Trofast storage furniture that I love!!! We have a few other big toys in our living room just because it's too cramped in here otherwise, but we have all the little toys and a few big things stored here. It's so nice to have a dedicated room for all this stuff!!!

http://share.shutterfly.com/action/welcome...mp;linkid=link5

 

Here are some pics from our playroom. We turned our living room into a playroom for the kids since we spend all of our time in the family room.
http://i119.photobucket.com/albums/o127/an...et/100_3779.jpg
http://i119.photobucket.com/albums/o127/an...et/100_3778.jpg
http://i119.photobucket.com/albums/o127/an...et/100_3777.jpg

 

Thanks for the compliments everyone! All of the shelving and bins in our playroom were purchased at Ikea.

QUOTE(double-or-nothing @ Feb 5 2008, 09:50 AM) [snapback]606681[/snapback]
Lotus....Your play room is so awesome. I can't wait to have something like that one day for my girls. Just beautiful. Were you by any chance a teacher? It looks very teacherish to me LOL


No, I'm a nurse I did design the room to function both as a playroom (for now) and as a homework/study room (for later). I try to spend a few minutes each day working on letters and numbers and crafts etc., but right now the girls spend most their their time playing in here. As they get older, I'm hoping to replace the toys on the bookshelves with more books and buy a larger table and chair set.

 

Its funny this came up as we have just finished our New Basement playroom. Well we still have more things to put up on the wall.
but here are some pictures...

http://i209.photobucket.com/albums/bb69/lgrazia/IMG_5491.jpg
http://i209.photobucket.com/albums/bb69/lgrazia/IMG_5492.jpg
http://i209.photobucket.com/albums/bb69/lgrazia/IMG_5490.jpg
http://i209.photobucket.com/albums/bb69/lgrazia/IMG_5489.jpg
http://i209.photobucket.com/albums/bb69/lgrazia/IMG_5488.jpg

The Babies LOVE there new room.

 

QUOTE(BridgePort @ Feb 5 2008, 11:25 PM) [snapback]607889[/snapback]
Here's a slideshow of our playroom with the Trofast storage furniture that I love!!! We have a few other big toys in our living room just because it's too cramped in here otherwise, but we have all the little toys and a few big things stored here. It's so nice to have a dedicated room for all this stuff!!!

http://share.shutterfly.com/action/welcome...mp;linkid=link5


Where did you get those personalized chairs? They are so cute.

 

QUOTE(hot2trottt4u @ Feb 6 2008, 10:30 AM) [snapback]608190[/snapback]
Its funny this came up as we have just finished our New Basement playroom. Well we still have more things to put up on the wall.
but here are some pictures...

http://i209.photobucket.com/albums/bb69/lgrazia/IMG_5491.jpg
http://i209.photobucket.com/albums/bb69/lgrazia/IMG_5492.jpg
http://i209.photobucket.com/albums/bb69/lgrazia/IMG_5490.jpg
http://i209.photobucket.com/albums/bb69/lgrazia/IMG_5489.jpg
http://i209.photobucket.com/albums/bb69/lgrazia/IMG_5488.jpg

The Babies LOVE there new room.

I love all of those cute ideas for the play room. I definietly want to know where did you get those HUGE green mats? And I love the cute mailbox toy! Keep those wonderful playroom photos coming in....I'm getting jealous here! <wink>

Diana w/Rianna and Justin

 

Awesome pics gang!! My kids were looking at them all saying "I want to play!"

 

QUOTE(double-or-nothing @ Feb 6 2008, 09:45 AM) [snapback]608208[/snapback]
Where did you get those personalized chairs? They are so cute.


Pottery Barn Kids Anywhere Chairs.

They were their first birthday presents. With their birthday being right after Christmas, it seemed like they already had every toy out there by the time their birthday came around. They were kind of pricey, but the slipcovers zip right off and can be washed, and they're big enough that they'll get several years of use out of them. Right now they can't be bothered to sit for very long in them, but they like to climb on them!

 

QUOTE(lotus @ Feb 6 2008, 01:07 AM) [snapback]607968[/snapback]
Thanks for the compliments everyone! All of the shelving and bins in our playroom were purchased at Ikea.
No, I'm a nurse I did design the room to function both as a playroom (for now) and as a homework/study room (for later). I try to spend a few minutes each day working on letters and numbers and crafts etc., but right now the girls spend most their their time playing in here. As they get older, I'm hoping to replace the toys on the bookshelves with more books and buy a larger table and chair set.


Ditto the play to study idea. We gutted the closet in their playroom and put a countertop and shelves for computer and peripherals in there. For now, it's all tucked away behind the closet doors and not taking up space in the room. But in the future, they'll be able to open up the doors and use their computer, or use the countertop for other work.

Now that we're getting the playroom in shape, I'm so hoping they're good sharing a bedroom for the indefinite future. We decided long ago that we would have two bedrooms that would be theirs, and we were really hoping they'd want one to share as a bedroom and the other to share as a playroom. If they need their own bedrooms at some point, then no more playroom.....hopefully that alone will motivate them to be happy sharing a bedroom!

 

QUOTE(Sullyirishtwins @ Feb 6 2008, 03:22 PM) [snapback]608286[/snapback]
I love all of those cute ideas for the play room. I definietly want to know where did you get those HUGE green mats? And I love the cute mailbox toy! Keep those wonderful playroom photos coming in....I'm getting jealous here! <wink>

Diana w/Rianna and Justin



It is so much fun making a play room
the rubber mats we found on craigslist :good: but the lady we got them from bought them from www.softtiles.com They are so nice the babies roll around on them. They are also super easy to wipe clean!! THe Mail box (also a huge hit) is a Little Tikes Buzz About Mail Box. You can find them alot on ebay. they come with three pieces of mail and three stacking cup. Hope that helps. Can't wait to see your room when its done

 

QUOTE(BridgePort @ Feb 6 2008, 04:09 PM) [snapback]608376[/snapback]
Pottery Barn Kids Anywhere Chairs.

They were their first birthday presents. With their birthday being right after Christmas, it seemed like they already had every toy out there by the time their birthday came around. They were kind of pricey, but the slipcovers zip right off and can be washed, and they're big enough that they'll get several years of use out of them. Right now they can't be bothered to sit for very long in them, but they like to climb on them!


We have the Pottery Barn Anywhere chairs as well and my kids still love them. They got them on the 1st birthday too. Good investment!

 

I second the Trofast system at Ikea. LOVE this system. Makes it so easy to clean up. We also have the pottery barn chairs, just make sure you get the bigger size so they can grow with them!

Here is a photo of our den/playroom:
Photo of Play Room

hope that link works!

-Dana

 

The link didn't work for me. I wanna see it I wanna see it!!!

 

wahh!!! i wish we had room for this. I think we are going to have to redo their room to maximize the play area.

thanks for all the great pictures!

 

These links should work:

Play Room Shot #1

Play Room Shot #2

Phoebe in her dog t-shirt in the play room She wants to wear that darn t-shirt every day! argh!

And here is why you should never leave baby powder within reach:
Baby Powder Play Room

 

QUOTE(*Dana* @ Feb 6 2008, 02:07 PM) [snapback]608824[/snapback]
These links should work:

Play Room Shot #1

Play Room Shot #2

Phoebe in her dog t-shirt in the play room She wants to wear that darn t-shirt every day! argh!

And here is why you should never leave baby powder within reach:
Baby Powder Play Room


LOVE the baby powder picture!! I'm sure you weren't lovin it that day, but at least you had the perspective to see a great photo op and take advantage of it!

 

I was so mad! It was right before bed time, I changed their diapers and left the room to get their bed time drink. And left the baby powder bottle ( a huge Target brand sized one). So I was mad, and then said to them, "Hold on, I have to get the camera!"

Archer thought it was pretty funny, but you can see that Phoebe started to cry the second I raised my voice!