My husband and I recently decided that we desperately needed a playroom. It was one week after Graham was born and the kids were driving us nuts. They were constantly on top of the baby, leaving their toys all over the living room and fighting with one another.
We longed for the days in the hospital with Graham where it was just the two of us; quiet, toy free and, honestly, quite relaxing. Don’t judge me! Obviously I love my kids, but we can all admit that we need a break sometimes (and you know that with each kid you had you stayed in the hospital longer and longer enjoying the peace and quiet and free food – don’t deny it!).
That’s when I decided that we needed to turn a small area in our basement into a “playspace” of sorts so that we would have somewhere to send them and half their toys, which recently seemed to overtake our living room. I am generally pretty good about keeping toys to a minimum; I refuse to let their toys trump my style and the ones we do own are mostly put in boxes and bins to help hide them.
But now that we have kids of both genders (meaning we now have dolls AND trucks) and after receiving lots of oversized toys as gifts for birthdays, it was becoming impossible to find a place for everything. I knew that creating a play area would solve many of our problems – the toys and the kids would move downstairs. Plus, I really wanted to be able to say “go the basement!” when I got frustrated with them… (*update: it’s just as satisfying as I imagined it would be)
So I started researching playrooms and play spaces online to gather some ideas. I needed something practical for a small area (our play space is in a room outside of the basement bathroom that is long and narrow and really has no logical use) and something with lots of storage.
Here are some inspiring playrooms that I came across in my search; don’t you wish one of them was yours?
While I can’t replicate many of these because we rent (i.e. the awesome custom-built slides, castles and playhouses), I am filing away the more elaborate ideas for when we own a home and can really go all out. Since it snows in Colorado, an awesome playroom will be even more essential in the winter when the kids are stuck indoors!
Small play space for corner or closet
Chalkboard and book shelves
Play house in corner and built-in shelves
Playroom with a corner stage
Corner play unit with slide, plus storage
Playroom with corner castle
Play area with reading loft in closet
Colorful playroom with cafe and lots of storage
Playroom with chalkboard wall, puppet theater and teepee
Playroom with built-in slide and bookshelf storage
Charming attic playroom
