Basement toy organization, check!

Hey hey! Good Friday to you! :) Today kicks off spring break for the hubby and the kiddo – I am so looking forward to a relaxing week with both of them home! (We’re boring and never go anywhere for break.)

I’m excited to share a little bit of organization with you today! Can I just say it again? Organization makes me happy. Very, very happy. Borderline delirious.

I showed you our new built in cubbies in the basement last month and I’ve been crushing on them ever since:

Can you blame me? That’s seventeen feet of built ins waiting to take on a pile of toys. Seriously – bliss.

Because Target called and asked if I wanted to show off some of their Threshold line and I was all, YEEEEEEAH, I headed out to my local Tar-jay to see if they had what would work for the built ins.

I loved the look of these bins – I thought the gray ones would look awesome down there:

But they were just a little too small for what I needed. And the lid would make it harder for the kiddo to get to his toys.

I loved these too – they had the shape I wanted and I liked the idea of the liner:

But they weren’t the right size – I really wanted to use each cubby to the max and these were too small.

I was getting closer with these:

But the big one was a little too big and the small one was kind of tapered – smaller at the bottom and larger at the top. In my head I had imagined something perfectly square.

So when I found these abaca milk crates it was meant to be:

I felt a little like Goldilocks when I realized these were just right.

They were the perfect size, I loved the color and the shape was just what I wanted. SCORE.

I ended up going to a couple different Target’s to get them over the course of few weeks. So sorry if you wanted some locals, I was the one buying them all up. ;) On my second trip to get a couple more they were on sale, so I took my receipt back and got credited the difference for all of them – keep that in mind if you buy something and see it’s on sale the next week!

Next came the HUGE toy purge – the boy and I went through ever.y.thing. and ended up with a manageable pile to sort into the containers. But because you can’t see through the bins, I still needed a way to make clean up easy so things stayed organized.

I wanted labels – so I picked up some wood plaques and some cool scrapbook paper from Hobby Lobby:

And used spray adhesive to glue the paper to the wood:

Then cut them out with an x-acto knife like I showed you here.

I used picmonkey.com to write out the words and then glued them on top. At first I was going to make it cute with pictures of the items inside (cars, etc.), but I realized the Bub is reading and we need to encourage that, so words were what I ended up with:

I drilled holes into each one and tied them through with some twine.

I LOVE how they turned out! Kind of funky and cool, but still cute enough for toys. :) The green and blue works great with the colors down there:

I didn’t fill every cubby with them (there are 22 cubbies!!), but my need for symmetry won out – I used five on one side and four on the other:

The subwoofer fills in the fifth spot on this side, so it looks balanced.

The cubbies at the ends are open for random toys:

You know, for things like ginormous stuffed penguins. ;)

I found a few other items while at Target, of course. This basket was on clearance in the kitchen aisle and it holds the many random Legos that end up all over that countertop.

All. over. (Twitch.):

Sometimes Momma just needs to be able to throw stuff in a basket and not worry exactly where it goes, you know?

These big floor pillows were on clearance for $12 each – so soft and big and perfect for laying around on the floor:

And of course…I couldn’t resist another placemat pillow. It’s a sickness people, I know. I can’t quit them:

This one is just two placemats sew together with another pillow stuffed inside. It literally took me ten minutes. Thankfully you can’t see the horrible sewing job, it’s hidden by the fabric. ;)

I LOVE the baskets and LOVE the labels and I LUUURVE how the basement is coming together:

There’s still much to do on this wall – the lamps will get painted, just not sure what color yet. Still need to hang floating shelves, art…and maybe a few other fun things. The top will be cleared off a little when the shelves go in.

But I cannot tell you how happy I am to finally have a dedicated and organized spot for all of the toys. It’s been six years coming. :)

It’s not picture perfect but it’s functional and fun and we love it:

My little photo bomber had to get in on the action too:

Sorry. :)

By the way, the cubbies are not wide enough for games, but I have those in a dresser down there. (Most of them are up in the family room anyway.) Some of them fit in the built ins but most are too long.

There you go, our wall of blissful, wonderful, fantastic organization. It’s so easy to clean up down here now too, he knows exactly where things go. And we’ve already discussed that this is IT – if we can’t find a spot for something new, something else has to go.

Can I just tell you how awesome my kiddo is at purging? He is SO great at telling me things can go – so good at it that I find myself saying, “Are you sure??” Yet again, it’s me that has the sentimental attachment to most of it, but I’m always getting better at letting things go that we don’t use or love anymore. (Although when he told me the remaining Thomas the Trains could go I did keep some in his memory bin.) ;)

Have a lovely Easter weekend! May it be bright and sunny and warm! And I’ll see you back here Monday for the April before and after link up!