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We have an NYC two bedroom that is under 1,000 square feet. There is a living room with a galley kitchen and the bedrooms. We have a lot of hallways and closets which helps. We have a play kitchen and a few sets of toys (brio, Duplo, cars, magnet blocks, puzzles and a huge little people thing from Mil for Xmas which is about to go), toys come out one at a time. It's kinda a pain. I cyc stuff often. The boy's room is small and has toys in it to but they do most of their planning in the living room. Our room is filled with everything I dont want them to get their hands on...
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We have a 1300 sq ft 2/2 in the DC area, with a 5 year old kid. I've lived in apartments my whole life, in a family of 4, so I'm naturally inclined toward less stuff so I tend to purge regularly. Kiddo has her own room, and we store a bunch of toys there in bins that sit in a closet (we're pretty lucky on having lots of closet space), and a toy box that a friend made us that sits in the closet under her hanging clothes. We have a desk in the master bedroom that serves as my/DH's work space (though DH also uses the dining room table regularly), and a desk in the living room that serves as kiddo's crafting/homework area. The biggest challenge we have is storing built Lego sets. Kiddo likes the playing part more than the building part, so once they're built, we keep them and she makes villages and whole worlds out of them, but I haven't figured out a good way to keep them around, except keeping them propped up on a low stand in the living room. Our bedrooms are carpeted so they aren't as conducive for Legos. Beyond that, I think it all works fine, though we are going to try selling again and buying a house so we at least have some guest space.
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@codeitall: I’m glad you came back to share!
Question for the group, do you all have rules about where the toys can be played with? For instance right now we have upstairs and downstairs toys, which helps me keep track of all the parts and each toy or activity has a designated home that LO knows where it goes back to. It’s a big deal to bring an upstairs toy downstairs and vice versa. Toys are in a few areas right now: his bedroom (up), his play area (down), kitchen (art supplies), living room (dress up, games, and tray of action figures). He’s not going to have this much space to spread out in the new house and I’m wondering if I will need to give up on the restriction where toys can be played with- each will still have a designated home. Thanks
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@Mrs. Lemon-Lime: we only had toys in the living space, because our condo was 3 rooms- 2 bedrooms and the living/ kitchen area. They mostly stayed in the play area behind the couch but we weren’t strict since the only other option was in front of the couch. But she wasn’t used to anything different. I think it makes sense to have bedroom toys and living room toys. I’m currently trying to enforce the upstairs vs downstairs toys now and it’s a battle- should have started earlier.
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@Mrs. Lemon-Lime: the only rule we have is that art supplies and anything messy (Playdoh, science experiments, etc.) have to stay on the desk or the dining room table, and can't be in other rooms. Beyond that, everything is flexible as long as it goes back to its storage space at the end of the day.
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@Mrs. Lemon-Lime: when we lived in an assortment it was about 1100 sq ft. It was a 2 bedroom place and at that time we only had 1 child. She had a kidcraft kitchen and playarea and the obit way we could accomodate that was by sacrificing our dining room. So the dining room was her play space. So we had no dining table which is tough for hosting people.
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I do not have rules about where toys can be played with, I did, but they started to migrate and as my son got older, the toys got smaller and less obtrusive. I let my son have everything but paint in his art cart in his bedroom, he's remarkably neat.
I only have one rule, and that is if the toy is in the playroom, it doesn't have to be put back at the end of the night. If it is in any other part of the house, it does, with the exception of lego construction, which is done on our dining table for the most part.
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@Mrs. Carrot: My rules are similar. I don't care where they play with toys (well, I don't really let them bring toys into our master bedroom, but they go back and forth between their room and the living room), but the toys go back into their designated spot when it's time to clean up.
And the only exception to that is art supplies--it all stays in the art table in the living room and I only let them use it at the art table or on our dining table. And things they can't use unsupervised (glitter, glue that isn't in stick form), I have put up high on a shelf in my master closet so they can't access it at all unless one of us gives it to them. But everything else they can access it alone and whenever they want, it just has to stay at the art table.
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@Mrs. Lemon-Lime: Yes. There are bedroom toys and living room toys and toys with lots of parts (puzzels, legos, maginet blocks, musical instraments, doll house) get played with one at a time and are mostly kept up high.
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