Creating Fun & Organised Children’s Play Spaces
Give children the opportunity to express their creativity through inventive play spaces! Read more of our style guide for helpful tips on constructing engaging environments your little ones can explore.
For those of us with children, we are well practiced at tidying up and sorting toys. It is a daily reality in our home to pack up the day’s mess. But as I go on, now with four children, I have learnt a few things about the importance of setting up a play space that not only is fun and engaging for our kids, but also makes packing up and keeping things organised much easier. So we thought we would put together a bit of a checklist that you can use when designing and setting up your children’s play spaces.
Curved-Edge Shelf with Natural Leather Straps as featured in Minty Magazine
Get things off the floor
I think this is the most important tip for keeping things tidy. Toys piled on the floor get messy really quickly, yet if they have a home off the floor it is much easier to keep on top of things. It also makes giving the area a quick vac doable! So consider what furniture you can use or upcycle to get things up higher. Especially if you have a toddler!
Making the most of your wall space in a room doesn’t have to be expensive nor difficult. We have a range of different shelving options that are very easy to install and can help provide storage options for lots of toys, with a variety of size options provided on our website, or get in touch with us for a custom length.
Custom Wooden Cube Storage unit. Contact us via our webform for a custom quote.
Make it accessible for kids
Sometimes the most frustrating thing about toy storage is kids pulling everything out to get to what they want…and they often don’t pack it all back up! That’s why we have found displaying their possessions in a clear and accessible way makes for less mess in the beginning. For example, a bookcase can display lots of books, but with only the spine of the book showing, for most kids this means pulling out every book to get the one they want. We have found a much better way to display books in our kids rooms is to use shelves that show the front cover more clearly. We have several shelving options such as our Picture Ledges, Bookshelves and Magazine Racks that are perfect for this.
Book Shelves in Raw finish. Also featuring Circus Art print by Ivory Ink Studio
Divide the room into zones
This is just a simple point of organisation; keep like play pieces together. For example, have imaginative play toys in one area, building blocks in another, and arts and crafts in it’s own zone. This means if you have multiple kids wanting to play different things in the same space they are not going to be playing on top of one another. It also provides different areas for your children to explore and makes for a really functional space. Even in a small space this is possible, so don’t despair if you have a tiny room!
We have found having a dedicated reading zone can be achieved by simply adding some cushions next to the book, a rug on the floor or even a little canopy suspended from the ceiling. Likewise, a block area works best with a table, or flat surface for them to build on. A craft zone is also really important to plan, as there is a lot of potential mess here! We all know what it is like to discover a beautiful mural on the wall with crayon! That’s why we created our Paper Wall Hangers to give children the dedicated space on the wall for them to draw…and hopefully limit their illustrative creativity to that space and not the rest of the house! Combine this with a little desk and shelves to store stationary and you have a simple art zone!
Inspire creativity
Giving the space life and interest for our kids is key! Engaging them and giving them options for creativity turns a play space into a hidden educational zone without them even knowing it! Sometimes even taking something away can inspire them with ideas for new types of play. So one weekend, try moving the furniture out of your play space and see what happens!
Keeping things fresh and different will also give opportunity for new ideas to be ignited in your children’s minds. So take some time every now and again to change up the books on the shelf, move some toys around or if you are really feeling creative you can change up the decor. We love these Fabric Wall Decals by Ivory Ink Studio. This artist has a whole range of inspiring images that can really transform a play space and are so easy to take off and on, without any wall damage whatsoever. These are some of our favourites below:
Make sure you include your kids in the design of the play space too. It’s great for them to learn the importance of a little bit of order in life. It will also help them know where everything goes; especially if they helped in the decision making process of where things belong. Enjoy!
