Setting Up the Playroom

We're still working through unpacking and organizing and figuring out what needs to go where. I have a to do list a mile and a half long (all in my head) of things I WANT to do, but it seems to be slow going. OrgJunkie's Monthly Organizing Round-Up for June was the Playroom. So I decided that was a good excuse, combined with the girls' renewed interest in "school" which has had me scrambling to find all our supplies that were still in boxes, to really focus on the Playroom/Schoolroom.

This is the 3rd bedroom in our small house & as I thought through the logistics of settling into this house I decided it would be best used as a playroom/school room. With the girls' loft bed providing much more play space in their room than originally anticipated, the play/school room can focus mostly on the school side of things, though the girls spend lots of time playing in both rooms (and every other room of the house, they "travel" so much in their play LOL)

So, here are the before pictures . . .



Standing in the doorway. Random stuff on the bench. Boxes to unpack (there were lots more boxes to unpack stacked in a storage area). . .
Other side of the room , still from the doorway. More boxes and random stuff to unpack & put away.

And the final view of the other corner of the room before. More stuff to unpack & put away. The playstands that I'd thought would be in this room but now I'm thinking w/ the loft arrangement we will store them . . .

This room is still very much in progress, but for the time being, here's what I've done (& what I still have plans to do)

I put down foam mats over a tarp on part of the floor so that if we want to paint & do crafts up in this room we can. I have a small table similar to the one the computer's on that I need to get put together (but I suspect that will be easier done with an electric screwdriver, so that will probably wait till Dad visits again, though I might see if dh will put it together using Dad's electric screwdriver while we're at Sesame Place) and it will sit on the mat area. I might also go ahead & cover the whole floor w/ the foam mats, I haven't decided yet . . .

Also in the above picture. I set up the CD player & some CDs and such in the corner of the bench. The blanket in the windowsill is part of something the kids are doing. Hard to see, but I hung a globe beach ball on some yarn & hung it from the little piece sticking out above the window that blinds were once attached to. And I hung one of our recent "art projects" on the wall. I'm still pondering a good way to be able to hang our art projects on the wall but change them out frequently. I'm toying w/ magnetic paint on a section of the wall but that might be cost prohibitive. And the landlord would probably be annoyed but since they left us w/ bright yellow faux finish I figure that room is anything goes LOL. I might also just hang a "clothesline " near the ceiling and hang our paintings & such from it . . . still thinking it all through.
The wall where the door is. There are still a couple boxes. The fruit box holds the things we'll need over the next month or so to finish up the preschool curriculum we've been using. The basket above it holds what we are currently using on a daily basis, with the overflow "reference books" on the floor between the boxes. The metal bulletin board I want to hang, but I'm still trying to decide which wall I want it on, so for now the unpacked box of random craft stuff is making a nice stand for it. The basket in front of it has alphabet magnets. The white board on it is where we write our daily schedule. The small table that you can just see a corner of I was going to get rid of & then decided it would work well for a nature table. So the plan with it is to probably drop at least one leaf of it so it doesn't take up much room & have it in the rounded corner of the room w/ playsilks on it to use as a nature table. BUT the girls took it over and are using it as a desk so until I get the other table built, we're skipping the nature table (summer nature table is always hard anyway since summer stuff is all GROWING) and they're using it as a desk and such.

You can see the future nature table better in this picture. And at the moment the chairs are around it instead of at the computer. The upside down stool is generally used as a doll seat, I assume that's why it's on the chair. The playstands, I plan to store. And one of the many projects on Dad's to do list is to build a table that the big printer will sit under & the copier (that I haven't carried upstairs yet) will sit on top of. So, once Dad builds that the playstands will leave but for now they're doing a pretty good job of holding the printer.

And finally, all the craft supplies and games and any toys that aren't in the girls' room. We have a huge upstairs hall closet that I put shelving in & am using as my "homeschool closet" this is just one piece of it (there are 3 doors to access it & there's another shelf above the part you can see in the picture) but this gives you an idea of how I have all our craft stuff organized. Games and various things are similarly on these shelves.
And that's our play room/school room. I'm excited to have walls to hang things on. If I decide I want more storage IN the room I can move a bookcase up from downstairs but at the moment I'm liking all the open wall space.

Oh I didn't think to take a picture of the back of the door but it's utilized space too. There are hooks on it that hold a bag with our no-spill paint jars, the girls' binoculars, their "tool belts" w/ tools that Mama made for them last Christmas, and some of their backpacks.