Project Playroom COMPLETE

Goodness sakes, that took long enough!! We started this project in mid January and it's now the end of February. It was a LOT of work and we did have to put it on hold for two weeks while Gabe was on a business trip.

Here's a reminder of where I last left you... We had started the project, then I gave you an update.

In my last update, we just needed to finish the painting. After finishing the painting, we played a little Tetris with figuring out the best way for the shelves to fit together. Yes, they were all the same, but since we built everything ourselves, they weren't all exact. We stacked them, then Gabe bolted them all together and anchored them to the wall for the best stability and to ensure safety.

We figured out how we wanted the bottom three large cubbies to go first.

Next Gabe drilled the holes to bolt it all together and Alena would then vacuum the sawdust in order to keep the carpet cleaner.

We set them up and I did some touch up painting on any spots that needed it.

Whew! Already looking so good! The hardest parts are finally done and now we just had to put all the totes and books in and we're good to go!

We took our children's movies, books, toys, games, and puzzles and arranged them in the best way possible. I had wanted the books to go on the second shelf, but then the kids had a hard time reaching the tote handles on the third shelf. So we ended up putting the books on the third shelf since they can reach the bottom of the book to pull it out.

DONE! Here is how we currently have everything set up. Gabe and I will use the top shelf and the top of the storage unit for ourselves. We put the children's movies up top too because we don't want them reaching them. If they were accessible to the kids, I'm afraid they would be pulling them off the shelf and helping themselves (and possibly ruining the discs).


The children's books are on the third shelf. I currently have even more books that would probably take up another three cubbies that I'm trying to figure out what to do with. I did pick some out to donate but we all love books and I hate to have to limit it now.

The totes hold most of their toys. They have Lincoln Logs, coloring supplies, Alena's "make up"/hair supplies, matchbox cars, puzzles, and other random toys.

The bottom middle cubby holds all their puzzles. We had at least 25 puzzles and as I was trying to get them all to fit in that one space, Gabe had the idea to take all the boxed puzzles and put them in Ziploc bags. So we cut the picture off the box and put that and the puzzles pieces in a bag, then put them all into the orange bin. We left out the wooden and cardboard puzzles that do not have a box and also a couple floor puzzles that would have required more than one Ziploc bag. As you can see, it saved a lot of room utilizing the bags!

I now need to label all the totes so the kids know what goes where, making finding and cleaning the toys a breeze.

We are starting the thought process for making another one of these for the opposite wall. That one will look the same except the middle won't have cubbies. Instead, there will be a fold out table where the kids can color or play games at. I'm not sure when that will happen because Gabe will be gone the first two weeks of March on his last business trips before the baby arrives. And of course, after he comes home, we'll be waiting for the baby and our time is going to get crazy!

I'm so excited to have this project done and just love the results! What do you think? This was our first BIG project and even though it's not perfect, it came out just how we envisioned it.