Toy Storage Solutions

The secret to toy storage success is choosing solutions that make it easy for children to clean up. Depending on the age of your children, you could make labels for bins that toys go in. I am about to re-implement this into our household with a 6yr old and 3 yr old. I tried photo labels when my son was 4 and daughter was 2 but it didn’t work the best for their maturity levels at the time. This time around we will have a play food storage bin, LOL Doll storage bin, little people storage bin etc. You may prefer everything just goes in one big toy box or ottoman. This worked great for us when the kids were little. Today, I’m here to discuss which toy storage solutions are my favourite and regularly used in our household!

1. Toy box- Little Tikes makes a nice big toy box in different colors. Some of them have two drawers underneath or a shelf up top to hold books. We keep our large toy box in the basement play room. All toys that are downstairs are stored in here other than a princess castle that doesn’t fit and our tub of train tracks.

2. Cloth Book Racks- each of our children have a cloth book rack in their rooms. It keeps titles visible and is very easy for them to put their books away. My daughter has the book rack with two storage baskets at the bottom which we keep her dress up clothes in! They may look small but these drawers hold 5 dresses, purses, a doctor costume and fire hat!

3. Cube Shelf-  these type of storage shelves are very versatile! You can place larger toys like buses and trucks in their own cubby. You can get cute cloth style baskets to organize toys in. Or you can use plastic baskets; this is what we do because of dog hair being attracted to the cloth baskets. Cube shelves can also store books. Depending on size ( we have a two cube by three cube one) they can be placed horizontally or vertically. We got ours off Amazon but places like Walmart and IKEA have cube shelves too.

4. Stuffed Animal Storage- my kids aren’t super into stuffed animals, yet we seem to accumulate them. In my daughters room, I have a hanging organizer in the closet that holds her teddies ( see photo below) My sons teddy bears fit nicely at the end of the bed. You can also get corner nets for holding teddy bears as well. If you have lots of stuffed animals consider the wooden teddy bear zoo’s that are popular right now.

5. Hot Wheels Storage- there’s quite a few different ways to store hot wheels. You could put them all in a storage basket, or use the over the door shoe organizer to hold the cars. Our favourite is the 100 car plastic storage suitcase.

6. LEGO Storage- our oldest boy is 6 right now and we just got him a LEGO table for his room. I went to Superstore and found a small red plastic four drawer storage unit. It works perfect as we don’t really organize the LEGO in the drawers. I just have one drawer dedicated to LEGO men and the rest is assorted!

7. Storage Ottoman- we have a grey storage ottoman in our living room that’s from Homesense. It holds the toys that don’t fit in the cube shelf, like the small doll house. Toys are neatly tucked away in the living room for when company comes over. The dog also uses it as her perch in the window.