No number of toys are fewer toys, said who? Me, of course!
Being an apartment dweller has its perks. Rent as compared to mortgaging, fewer maintenance expenses, increased safety and a vast community around you. But yeah, in my case the only CON that I have come across with living in an apartment with my family is “Lesser space to accommodate me and my kid’s toys”.
It has always been a challenge since the day my 7-year old came into this world, that I went overboard with buying him amenities and toys at every stage of his growth. Needless to say, I am a father who loves buying toys and gadgets for his son, but at the same time, get scolded by the wife every time I make a purchase. She goes haywire when I buy something that has a decent amount of volumetric size attached to it, and the only question that I get from her is “Are you going to keep this one on my head now?” – Oh, the irony!
Small living spaces are, no doubt a smart way to encourage family togetherness as opposed to a mansion or a house. This is my personal opinion! I enjoy having my kid’s toys placed in the lounge of my apartment so that whenever the wife and I are watching the TV, we can see our son playing with his toys. This allows us to keep an eye on him and also gives my wife and me the mental peace that he is right Infront of us.
After carefully brainstorming the ideas and to possibly address this very concern and the need of not to hear such statements from your wife, if you too are living in an apartment, then relax, sit back and grab a cup of coffee. As I am about to jot down the best possible ways through which you can store a lot of toys in your apartment and at the same time would not be clobbered by your wife. These techniques are the most effective one, and I have been doing it for years now.
As a parent to a boy, living in an apartment of 30 meter-square, I have found out several ways to store my kid toys without sacrificing the living space and succumbing to the toy mania that my son and I possess.
Organize Toys in A Small Apartment and The Living Room
I too used to struggle with a continuous screaming wife that the toys I buy for my kid are all over the place. Well, she was right! The army of toys my son has used to be all over the place until I decided to come up with the best possible and inexpensive ways to manage his toys. Here is a list of 11 more sought after ways which have proven for me and I am sure would help you organize toys in a small living room and even in your apartment.
Furniture That Converts into A Storage
This should be your first go-to move. Furniture that double out as storages range from Ottomans to Benches that have the flexibility to open up. You can use these two to your arsenal to snuck away books or bins of toys whenever needed.
Coffee-tables and end-tables with drawers can be used to store away puzzles or other board games that you may have.
I agree that Ottomans are expensive and it is not always possible to go out and about replacing the furniture regularly. Thus, keep an eye on the Clearance-Sales of your favourite local store, and once that happens, you may be able to bag in a deal on the Ottomans or drawer attachments to store your favourite toys, at a fraction of a cost.
These Ottomans also are aesthetically pleasing and eliminate conjecture to store away the toys in the most effective way possible.
Woven Baskets Are Great for Toys
If you are like me, who has a deep affinity towards plushes, then get your hands on a beautifully designed woven basket. You can get them for as cheap as $5 from your local town centre or any high-street shop.
You can use these woven baskets to snuck away loose toys and can then tuck in the basket behind furniture without giving out its hiding place.
Storage Box with Lid to Stow Away the Toys
This is the most sought after way of storing, big toys and games. Storage boxes with lid are durable enough to be used every day by you or your kid and quite frankly can withstand the onslaught of kids throwing them around (Not that they should be doing this!).
Storage boxes with a lid are both majestic and pretty and work as a great way to handle all the big toys scattered around in your apartment.
You can very well buy a couple of these boxes of different colours and stash them all together either in a pyramid shape or just as free-standing on the floor. I personally admire them the most, and my kid also finds it a lot of handy to only pick up the box that he wants to play with.
These shouldn’t cost you more than $5. You may as well pick these up from IKEA using this link.
How About Behind the Couch
Does everyone have a sofa? Let’s get cracking!
If your sofa has been pushed flat against the wall, consider requesting your wife to permit you to push it a bit farther away from the wall. Just enough, so you could slide the big teddy and gigantic towers such as the Paw Patrol Lookout Tower that my son has just bought, right behind the couch.
This is the most effective way of stowing away toys out of high traffic zones in your living room, thus eliminating the factor of stepping or toppling over them.
Shoe Rack for Toy Storage
Undoubtedly shoe racks are a great space-saver and have been around for years now. And from the looks of it, they aren’t going to go anywhere. Obviously, you shouldn’t be nestling your soiled shoes in these shoe racks but instead keeping a tidy pair of shoes or your favourite flip-flops in your favourite shoe-rack is the primary purpose behind these shoe-racks.
Now, what if I tell you, instead of stowing away your shoes or slippers in the shoe rack; you can chuck in a load of your kid’s favourite LEGOS into the slots and then hang the shoe rack in your cupboard. Out of sight, out of mind! At least till your kid wants them back, of course!
You can pick a shoe rack up for as low as $5 from eBay.
Stick Them to Your Fridge
This one is my wife’s all-time favourite. You can basically sneak your kid’s toys or in fact anything with a miniature design directly into the pockets of racks. These racks come with a magnet to hold the peripheral against a metal object. In our home, it’s the kitchen, the canopies, etc.
I wouldn’t be wrong in saying, whenever the wife is on about house-keeping; my son and I tend to lose track on which toys are kept into which rack and where exactly is that rack in the house, as she has a plethora of these throughout the house.
These fridge racks can be easily found in your dollar store, but if you are an online shopper like me; then head over to Amazon and buy it for approx. $10 including shipping.
If you are not keen on shelling out $10 on this particular item, then you can also order it at a fraction of a price from AliExpress. Bear in mind the shipping times are anywhere between 20 to 30 working days. That is if you choose the most inexpensive or FREE shipping option. For your purchase to make it worth-the-while, then stay away from paying that extra premium to the seller at AliExpress to ship out your products via Premium Shipping as the charges are sky-high on those.
And if you are DIY (Do-It-Yourself) kind of a person, then get hold of some empty pasta boxes or other small containers. Get a glue gun and a decent sized flat magnet. Apply the heated glue onto the magnet and the container, and voila. Let it try, and you have a full-fledged homemade rack that you can use to store toys in.
Cart with Shelves
You can store your toys in the carts which have multiple shelves installed in it for storage purposes. Not to sound too Hospital-like, but these shelves are a great way to roll in or out your toys with the help of the wheels present on these carts.
You can easily install these shelves with stackable toy bins or baskets and slide these bins in or out whenever needed.
This one is a bit expensive but is readily available at Walmart. The price is approximately $84.01 and it comes with a Free Delivery to your house.
Portable Toy Caddies
Portable toy caddies are once again a convenient way to club those books and tiny toys together in one place. Once your kid is done with playing, just assemble them back into the caddy and snuck it away into the closet.
If your kid is like mine, then this whole exercise of placing all the toys back into the caddy is “YOUR” job.
The one I use for my kid is this. It’s priced at $9.97, and if you are lucky, you can even bag a FREE delivery on the product. Quite handy, I must say.
Pegboard or Wall Hooks
You can use a pegboard or wall hooks inside the closet or perhaps any place that you would want to have it installed into. And then with imagination as your tool, customize away with what needs to be hung up onto those tiny holes in the pegboard.
Notice: Your wife’s permission in this regard is highly appropriate. *Smile*
You can use this one from IKEA as I have found it to be reasonably priced and sturdy.
Toy Hammocks for Stuffed Animals
My son loves his PLUSHES! Guilty as charged, I love them too.
The one thing about these PLUSHES is that you can’t just nestle them into your closet and believe you have done an excellent job storing them. Nah-uh!
These furry friends need proper TLC (Tender Love Caring) if they are to last for a long time. The best way to store them and their appearance is by keeping them all together in Toy Hammocks. You can have multiple Toy Hammocks if you have an army of the PLUSHES.
I have installed a reasonably large Toy Hammock on top of my son’s bed. It works wonders and serves the purpose. You can buy these for as little as a $1 from AliExpress.com.
Under the Bed Storage
You do not necessarily need to go overboard with this one. Just buy some decent sized plastic boxes and place the toys that your kid is least interested in playing with, into these boxes and snug them away. If your kid is interested in playing with these, he/she would just ask you to draw the boxes out from beneath the bed or can do it themselves.
You can also donate the unused toys to Toys of Hope organization.
Conclusion
No one likes a cluttered environment. And that is especially applicable to apartment dwellers since we have limited space, to begin with as compared to those who own a full-fledged house with multiple rooms. Therefore, it is essential to make sure that you do all that it takes to make the surroundings look more appealing and at the same time all your valuables, gadgets and toys are kept in their best shape and easily accessible to both you and the child.
Hope you enjoyed the tips I have shared in this article! Do not forget to share it with your friends.
Written by:
Zohaib S.