Am I the only one for which the playroom concept hasn't worked well? In our last house, we had a daylight basement and I painted murals on the walls, made a castle playhouse in a corner and put a swing up in the beam. They did love the swing, but if I wasn't down there, the toys just migrated right upstairs and they were with me. For flooring, I would look at some of Tarkett's no glue vinyl. It has a cushion and has the roads for driving cars. I put the glow in the dark stars floor in my youngest's bedroom. Spills wipe easily and it is easy to change as they grow. I chose this for my oldest two son's bedrooms and it looks like punched metal. Very cool. Remember that if the toys are all over the house (basement, other rooms for games) you will end up chasing them all over the house. I would want to consolidate storage. I really prefer laundry baskets for most toy storage. It allows for easy change and the dump factor is good, while not being deep like a tradional toy chest. My youngest is now 6, but when they were smaller I kept on of those bigger Little Tyke climbing things in the room. See if you can hang a swing from a ceiling beam. By far the best indoor toy. You just have to keep "stuff" out of the swing zone. The blackboard paint sounds fun. You can also leave the windows bare and use glass markers which just wash off. I have found child sized tables don't always allow for enough room for projects. I have a round coffee table which has small chairs I've picked up different places. If I was going to do it again, I would buy a kitchen table at the thrift store and cut down the legs to use as a craft table. It would wipe easier than my coffee table. If you do use any type of bookcases, I wouldn't have them project out from the wall. Be sure and attach them to the wall with L brackets to eliminate the tip factor if someone decides to climb. And mine always have climbed. I made our inside playhouse out of a 4' x 8' piece of plywood. Cut in half and put at a 90 degree angle with L bracket, it went right into a corner. Since I had 2 boys at that time, I cut it so it was shaped like a castle and painted the wall corner to match. They would crawl in there with pillows. At two, I can't think your child will spend much time in there alone, so be prepared to make a corner for yourself with a rocker or comfortable chair. I would also just pick an easy decorating theme. Primary colors is the easiest. So much stuff is really cute, but they grow very fast. A four year old just isn't thrilled with those bunnies like they are at two. I've seen the splattered paint floor idea. You have to leave the plywood subfloor bare and paint in and seal. I wouldn't care for it unless the paint splatters were planned. As part of the decorating, I would pick a spot for a growth chart. Put in on a board or something, so in case you do end up moving you don't have to cut a chunck of the drywall out. I knew someone who actually ended up having to do that because she couldn't leave the pencil marks behind. I had to paint over ours when we moved. Sigh. Have fun! Gloria

I agree that you are wasting space in some places, and being far too tight with it in others. Start placing furniture in these spaces-- you can cut out paper replicas if you want to stick to using graph paper. Keep in mind that you will want 3 feet wide walkways through your open spaces. I suspect the area opposite the kitchen will be large and essentially unused -- yet it's the same size as your kids' bedrooms. That's a lot of space to remain empty in a home this size. Because of the way it is sandwiched between the hallway and the U kitchen, it would feel uncomfortable to sit there, unless you put a table in the middle or something to really define the space, but you've got your dining room elsewhere... FYI, when you're planning the space around your woodstove, think about where you will keep the wood outside, both when you're seasoning it, and when it's on deck for burning, how it will come in the house, and where you will store it inside. Wood is heavy and burns best when it is warm, so it's good to have it inside at least a few hours before you burn it. And it's also good to have a sheltered spot near the house to store the wood you are about to burn, so you aren't burning wood that has just been rained or snowed on. We burn 24/7 through the winter-- if you are just planning to burn every once in a while, this kind of planning may not be important. Do you have a TV? I don't see a place to put it in this plan.

Thanks @ katinparadise! Good idea! We’ve been busy planning kitchen remodel and kids’ rooms, so I’ve put the living room plans off. And I may be homeschooling my two youngest next year so I’m toying with the idea of making the room a reading/homeschool room. It wouldn’t be a forever thing, maybe just a couple years, so I don’t want a full-on schoolroom. I’d like to keep it flexible. I had this idea to do a full-wall bookcase. Would that be crazy? Then maybe on the pantry wall/corner I could put a book rack for the books we are currently reading (like what they have at preschool...it seems to be much more appealing and more likely to be cleaned up than the large row of books.) Main bookcase would’ve storage and rack would be reading corner. Anyway I am clearly nowhere near making up my mind lol. Feel free to give me any thoughts!

First question - Which wall do you think would work best for the built-ins? The wall opposite the window or opposite the door? Toy storage -- whatever y'all decide to go with -- would work best (at least for me!) opposite the window. Largely because then the immediate dumping-toys-out-so-I-can-see-what-I-want-in-here mess is out of sight from the main entrance of the room/adjacent spaces. Second - how would you layout the space - ie where would art table go? There needs to be open space too as kids tend to stretch out on the floor to play. I would also, as others have mentioned, place the table under the window. It's nice to play under a window. :-) Our playroom table is also taller than a standard kiddie table, allowing the youngest children to sit/play/hide underneath it. 3- flooring? Carpet most comfy, but laminate easier to clean up. Would it look weird to do a combination of both? I like the idea of the hard flooring with carpet-like Flor tiles, since y'all combine playroom with art. (We do all of our art stuff at the dining table because of the mess, lol.) 4- fun ideas especially for the little kids nook? I was going to see if my builder can make the outside look like a little house... any other cool ideas you’ve done or seen? I’m purposely leaving our chalkboard wall because I don’t want to clean all the dust it leaves behind I'm going to be more fun and less practical than previous posters, lol -- I would definitely do something fun for the nook. A little house (with a Dutch door), painted in gender neutral colors with a magnetic-paint wall, would be awesome. Or, string up some hammocks in that space, with some silk foliage/leafy garland hung from the doorway (use several, so that it operates like a bead curtain), and glow-in-the-dark star stickers on the ceiling. Or maybe a little "restaurant" set up, with a small table, 2 chairs, and a room divider/half wall for the waiter/waitress to disappear behind and prepare the customers' orders. What are your kiddos interested in? Anything glow-in-the-dark or magnetic is a total win. :-)