New Play Area

THERE ARE NO MORE TOYS LIVING IN MY LIVING ROOM!!!!!

(Yes, I may be a TAD excited...  :o)   ).

We have lived in our house for two years and we have always had a toy corner. I have had a love-hate relationship with this corner. I loved that my kids had access to their toys and could get them without help from me. However the toys would take over my living room on a daily basis no matter how much sorting/cleaning/reducing we did. I hated it! My kids are classic dumpers. They dump out a bucket to fulfill some deep need to dump things and then it has always been a battle at clean up time. I've been told, "It's too hard to clean ____ up." My response was usually, "Well then remember that next time you want to dump toys out." Gracious, I know.

We finally came up with a solution. The other night we got home super late from Bryan's mom's house and after the kids were tucked away Bryan and I stayed up even later talking. (It had been awhile since we had even hung out so we didn't care it was so late.) We decided a long time ago that we didn't like out dining room table. It's beautiful and handmade at some point. But instead of four legs it has a massive column and four feet come off of that (that I usually stub my toe on). There are "wings" on both sides that you can pull up and snap into place to make the table bigger. These wings are not level and I question their strength. We don't even sit at the table because the kids aren't comfortable sitting at the table because their feet just hang. And Bryan and I aren't really that comfortable at that table. So it becomes a dumping ground for clutter...super annoying. So the dining room table is getting the boot. We like eating together but much prefer sitting on our couch. We are going to purchase a sturdy coffee table and sit around that as a family. I don't think family dinner HAS to be at a table but just needs to be together and for the most part electronic free. (Disclaimer: we greatly struggle with the electronic free part. But we are working on it.)

Since the dining room table is leaving there's no reason to keep calling it a dining room. The new name? Kid's play area!!! We are going to get an area rug hopefully this week sometime. In the mean time we moved the kid's book shelf and toys into the play area. I also brought down Rya's kitchen. We moved their art wall as well. And we have plans for other fun wall art/decorations.

I'm so excited about this change! My living room is finally free of toys. Of course toys may come into the living room but when it's time to clean up they go back into the play area. Last night I was able to sit with the hubs and just relax while not being smothered by toys.

We still need to actually get rid of the dining room table but the kids still have plenty of room to play.

I am one happy Momma!!!!