twingirlsmom,
I know what you mean!!!!! We live in a 1550 sq ft home and I gave up my (small) dining room to have a playroom for my 3yr and 1 yr old. I have tried a million things to keep it in order but what I have found to be the best is the TALL train/activity table from Pottery Barn with 2 storage carts underneath. I put a dollhouse on top of the activity table and there is still plenty of room for other things. I also purchased about 8 small (shoebox size) bins from Target and I keep all of the smaller bins inside one of the storage carts under the activity table. I keep large/longer toys in the 2nd storage cart under the table. The carts are huge. The activity table is large so you can fit A LOT underneath it but not too large that it would take up too much space. The best thing about it is that it looks like a nice piece of furniture so that's what you see instead of all of those bright colored plastic toys! Every night we have clean up time and I lay out all of the small bins and the kids put their toys in them (a Little People bin, dollhouse furniture bin, car bin, music bin, dress up bin, etc) and then we put all of the small bins inside the carts and slide those under the activity table and it looks perfect! The activity table was expensive but honestly worth every penny. There is a similar one available from LandofNod.com but I think it might be a little smaller. Land of Nod's table also comes with 2 carts, a paper roll, and short and long legs so you can use it for different purposes or make it taller when the girls grow. I think it's $100 less expensive than PB's too. You can also look on ebay for a used train/activity table too. People sell them all the time. I also have two of the "primary cube storage units" available at Companykids.com that I love.
Good Luck!

Here is a link that might be useful: Pottery Barn Tall Activity Table with Carts

I used an older bookcase that I painted brown and bought some baskets to fit. Didn't look very "kiddy" but it was near the family room in view. I did plan to buy an ottoman that was large for storage and ability to play on top of but never got around to that too. I also used large plastic round bins for large toys, that I now use for laundry.
My youngest is 8yrs now and we are having a garage sale this summer so he can put his money towards a "large" item (gokart). The old toy shelf is now in the 15yr olds room for dvd's & PS2 games........it matches great!
I was, well still am, a little a*al so we kept the toys in the basement family room and not in the LR or kids BR's. It's still their play/hang-out space but modified. I'm glad I did go with something that wasn't just kid looking.

One quick tip is that any containers that you have can be labelled to help with clean up. Labels for 2 yo generally consist of a picture of the item taped to the container. It makes things go much quicker. For larger items, give them assigned spaces as well by taping the pictures to the back of the shelves.

We had a train table but got rid of it because it was too small for the layouts that my boys build but some children do like having the surface to play on.

The best toy storage items for us have been things that you wouldn't necessarily think to use. We have stashed and hid things in our house in different found items that nobody would really think toys are in over the years. Now that the kids are a bit older, most toys are in their bedrooms (we don't have a "spare" area for toys because we're in a single wide mobile home with about 1000sq ft and no extra storage). Most toys are in the closets and we also used area like under the bed for storage. However, DH and I have really learned that even with only the small amounts of toys that our two kids have in those small areas, our kids only play with a few things. Tonight we actually removed 4 garbage bags of items from DS's room that he hasn't touched in years.

If you find what you are looking for, great but also go through and really think about the items your DD's have. Do they ACTUALLY play with them? Would they even notice they are gone? Downsize. It will make you feel a LOT better and your kids will be happier. DS thanked us for cleaning out because he just couldn't do it!

Good luck!

Ikea Expedit. They have a tall skinny unit now (10 cubbies I think) that would work for you.

If you do a search for Expedit you can see the whole line. The link below is for the one I mentioned above.

We have two Expedits in the house - one in the playroom that we bought almost 9 years ago (a 16-cubby beech one), and one in the scrapbooking room we bought this year (a 25-cubby brown/black). Love them both!!

Here is a link that might be useful: Tall skinny Ikea Expedit

We have them from Ikea as well in dark brown (almost black) - they are awesome and can hold books or toys in a basket. What I like is that they can be used horizontally or vertically.

I don't have any good suggestions, just sympathy. I have a 7 and 5 yr old. They do have their own room for their toys for which I'm grateful. I've also been spending time this week on trying to organize their toys. The room they have has had so much on the floor that they keep bringing the toys in the living room to spread out and play with them. This past week, I purchased some inexpensive plastic shelving from Lowe's to put toys on (to go up instead of out). I looked at nice wooden bookcases, but didn't want to spend that kind of money for toys to set on and get all banged up. Besides they are in the back of a room no one sees that often. So far it seems to help. I was able to get one bag of toys together to pass on. I hope you find something that works! I hear that when they out grow all these little toys they have less, but what they do have will be more expensive. (I'm not looking forward to that :0) )

Robbi

A lot of furniture stores -- esp. unfinished furniture stores -- will make shelf units in any size you need. So you could figure out the size you need based on the volume of toys, and get a unit that might be, for example, 3' tall, 2' deep, and 6' long, or whatever. Ask them to make the shelves adjustable, and you could finish/paint it yourself to match whatever else is in the room. I've done this a couple of times when I couldn't find what I wanted "over the counter."

We have the Expedit shelf too. I used it as a sofa table (i.e. backed up to the L shaped sofa) in out playroom. It works great for the lamp, phone, books for the sofa side and toys for the play area side.
In our family room (since my daughter prefers to play where we're all hanging out), I emptied all the lower shelves of the entertainment center for her books, board games and puzzles. I also bought two square storage ottomans from target. These hold an amazing amount of stuff. One is for all the stuffed animals and the other is for other toys- doodle pads, toy phone, polly pocket in a ziploc, etc. These have worked great. They have safety hinges and clean up is easy throw everything in and the room looks fine for company.

I would advise against tall open shelving units (we don't allow them in school for young children).

They're not practical for teaching children to put things away, since the children can't reach the upper shelves, and it's not safe to let children play near them unsupervised, because a child may attempt to climb the shelves to reach something on a high shelf, or deliberately pull it down.

If you use anything taller than the child, it MUST be bolted to the wall. (Ikea even says this and provides brackets.) Often the best way to use a tall, narrow unit is to turn it on its side. Toy storage that a child can't reach really isn't useful unless you genuinely want to put everything away yourself.

Thanks to all for the great suggestions.

okmoreh - that's an important tip, thank you. One of my girls is such a climber so I certainly wouldn't put that past her. And as a mother of twins, I'm all about them learning to put their things away!

I think the Expedit looks like a good option for us. Plus, it is so affordable. What do you use for the storage bins? Baskets, soft cubes, etc? I really like the idea of the pictures on the bins so the girls can easily determine where to put their things.

I'm so glad I found this website...I'm getting great decorating ideas and awesome mom tips!!! :-)

okmoreh - every tall piece of furniture in your home should be bolted to the wall. That isn't unique to the Expedit. Bolted to a stud, it's impossible to pull down.

We have the 16 unit cubby one in our playroom and when my son was 3 (when we got it), he was able to reach the top shelf to put things away without a problem. Even if you got the taller unit (25 cubbies), you can just use the top row of cubbies for decorative items - pictures, whatever.

twingirlsmom - Ikea makes a variety of storage options that fit perfectly into the Expedit cubbies - baskets, plastic bins, doors, drawers, etc.

I remember that phase. We had toys in every room of the house. They need to be where you are so you can watch them though, so that means you may have to have toys in your living room or kitchen or anywhere else. Hang in there. They'll eventually get old enough so that you can say "no toys in the living room" when you need to keep it clean. The good news is, with twins they will soon be content to stay back in their bedroom and play with each other. My twins are 10 now and didn't cling to my pant leg for nearly as long as their older sisters. They're so much more independent.

We have a walk-in toy closet now with shelving all the way up. I keep toys with lots of pieces (like legos) up high so they have to ask to play with them, that way I can make sure they have the last thing put away first. I never thought I would be able to get my kids to stick to a one-thing-at-a-time rule but I did somehow. We have toys sorted in tubs and they've learned that they have to put away one tub to get out another. It doesn't work perfectly but I can walk across their bedroom floor MOST of the time. lol

When my twins were toddlers, I just had a couple of big laundry baskets to keep toys in that were in the living room. They're light and easy to carry room-to-room and easy to carry back to their bedroom. I need better storage though.

Wish we had an ikea store here. I'm always reading about things people have found there.