Playroom or Master Suite
S Josh
5 years ago
last modified: 5 years ago
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Mrs Pete
5 years agoS Josh
5 years agolast modified: 5 years agoRelated Discussions
Step up/down to a playroom or dining room?
Comments (15)One more vote to explore raising the ceiling instead of lowering the floor. In addition to lowering your home's value and making it a "definite no" to a lot of future buyers, you would make your house more dangerous to young children, older visitors and completely off-limits to anyone with accessibility issues. I live with brain injury I sustained at age 32 caused by tripping. It didn't seem like a big deal at the time, but it ended my career, as well as any potential to do anything else. It wouldn't take much for a guest to trip and crack their head. Would you be able to live with that if they sustained the damage I did? Could you afford the lawsuit that might be leveled against you? The increase in your homeowner's insurance if they knew you had that danger in your house? PLEASE don't do this. I apologize for the strong response. I just can't stand the thought of someone living with the headaches, vertigo, nausea, blurry vision, memory loss, etc. etc. I face every day. Especially if it can so easily be avoided....See MoreDining room turned into a playroom. Help!
Comments (3)Paint it a lighter more neutral color and paint the ceiling white. That dual colored ceiling does not allow the ceiling to "float" above. It delineates the ceiling too starkly, IMHO. I am guessing that there is no closet in that room. Some tall free standing wall cabinets/shelves might be something to consider. It is often nice to keep kids toys with pieces together and/or displayed. A puzzle with a piece missing is just a piece of junk. A puzzle on a shelf in an inviting box is enticing. One good toy with all the pieces intact is much more valuable than that box of jumbled junk in the corner. I would offer you to consider a nice small table with a couple of chairs ( not a kids table) for doing things such as play doh and holiday cookies, crafts, puzzles, board games, school projects and other such stuff. You need somewhere to sit in there and maybe a nice lamp. Perhaps a magnetic dry erase board on the wall might be in the future, and maybe some where to display the kids art. Perhaps you could create a reading/sitting area by putting in a window seat along the window. It does not have to be built in. It could be quite simple in design. You could put a comfy cushion on it and have storage under the bench. It sounds as if you may have decided not to use it as a dining room for a good long time, if ever. My advice would be to let that happen and go ahead and add pieces to the room that suit your needs. Yet I would advise you to not choose pieces that are strictly juvenile. Instead, choose pieces that will translate in the coming years. You can add juvenile elements with the cushion fabric and maybe a nice little valence on the window. Add that element with the things that are easily replaced or removed as time goes on. You might want to consider taking out that ceiling fixture in there and replacing it with something much less dining room looking. Remember, the kids are only little for a few short years. Before you know it, that teddy bear will have waddled out the door, Thomas and his friends will have chugged on down the track, and those primary colors plastic shelfs and pastel shaded canvas boxes will be too babyish. Instead of a building things with a tower of soft blocks, they will be curled up on a cushion with their ipads watching Peppa Pig and the unboxing of an endless array of toys on YouTubeKids, until about the early teens, when they will hide behind their closed bedroom doors. Tall shelving Seating A table Neutral, non juvenile pieces That is my advice for your nice room And, this grandmother might add another word of advice. That would be to try to value quality over quantity. Our children are so overwhelmed with too much stuff, most of which has no real redeeming quality or value to it. I would advise you to seek quality in time and experiences with each other rather than the latest plastic licensed character toy. No Paw Patrol toy is ever going to replace that time spent together, or time spent with friends just imagining. I watched a couple of little boys outside in the cul de sac yesterday, playing. It is not as common as it once was to see kids actually outside riding bikes and playing. These little guys are about eight years old. They were pretending that they wiped out on their bikes and had to come and rescue each other. Had I not been watching them and knew that they were playing, I would have panicked to see the one laying in the middle of the road with his bike to the side. The only super heros in sight for them were each other as they came to each others aid. I am a baby boomer grandmother now and this is about the only way we played when I was young. We had no room full of toys or 24 hour media. My kids had not much growing up, either. Today kids just are over whelmed with stuff. Your room is nice. But, try to fill it with experiences, not an endless array of plastic junk. That tide of plastic junk will come rolling in the front door and out the back on it's way to a landfill. There is so much plastic junk being thrown out into the garbage because most of it is not recyclable. Mostly all it leaves behind for the child is a forgettable experience of opening the brightly printed box and taking it all out....See MoreLiving Room/ Entryway/ Playroom
Comments (2)Some suggestions: --Remove, remove, remove gigantic blue chair/beanbag. You have a massive sofa which is sucking up most of the space and light in your room. Get rid of Big Blue today! --Replace the kids' storage cabinet under the window and the cabinet under your TV with a very long, low, wide shelving with baskets, which is the only place the children's toys will go. The shelves should run from one end of that wall right to the edge of the stairs. Rotate kid's toys out elsewhere so that you only have one storage center for them. --Swing the sofa around so that half of it is under the window and the other half is facing the TV and new storage. Move it forward enough so that you create an entryway from the front door with the back of the sofa. --Orientation here isn't right, but here's how to use the entry space you create once the sofa is moved forward, the blue chair is gone. Wouldn't you want your living room to look a little like this? Alternate layout: Bring sofa toward TV wall as suggested but forward enough so that you can use the corner created behind the sofa, that's unused now, for a small play area for the children. Put easel there, some small chairs. We don't have measurements, so I'm not sure how much space you might have to work with. --Decluttering should come first, but if you see some examples of layouts that would really work for you, then move that sofa now. Forget about pillows, throws, etc. Down the road get a really nice art work and those lovely Roman shades Nancy suggested to pull the eye away from the massive sofa. --Going forward: Get two small leather storage ottomans, not one big one. (Measure how much space they'll take up--I'm just showing this one as an example. They're not hard to find in all colors. You want soft corners for the kids' safety.) Pick storage ottomans in a light, pretty color that will echo some art work or Roman shades:...See MoreStyling/storage ideas for a kids “play room” off the front entry?
Comments (12)Congratulations. It looks like a wonderful home to raise your family. The most important thing is that they are playing happily and safely where you can easily interact with them and supervise them. This is their home and they are doing the important and wonderful work of play. So for these ages the basement does not work. A 2 year old (and even the 4 year old) need to be on the same floor level as the supervising adult, and your main floor room is ideal for that purpose. I would not close off the room too much. Maybe a curtain across the opening is all that you need. You need to hear what's going on. Or sometimes an unnatural silence is a clue that you need to pop your head in to investigate! Paint one wall with blackboard paint - it comes in many colours! There are lots of ideas on the internet for organizing smaller items (Duplo, books, puppets, stuffed animals/dolls, pretend hats/clothes). My granddaughters (ages 2 and 6) are often here and I have their things in heavy canvas bags with handles, the kind that you'd put beach stuff in. Some bags go in open cubbies and some into an armoire. It's easy to dump the bag somewhere to play, and then remind the children that one bags gets filled up and put away before a different bag gets dumped. https://mnmomma.com/ikea-toy-storage-hacks/ I love this idea! https://www.amazon.ca/Large-Children-Football-Organizer-Storage/dp/B01JLVC7NG/ref=dp_prsubs_1?pd_rd_i=B01JLVC7NG&psc=1 Or this one https://www.walmart.ca/en/ip/Toy-Storage-Organizer-Play-Mat-Outdoor-Basket-Large-Drawstring-Portable-Container-Bins-Floor-Activity-Kids-Room-Classroom-Gray/33XMDXW9HR61 I've seen deep old TV armoires repurposed very attractively as children's play places with lots of storage. https://thethriftycouple.com/5-ideas-to-repurpose-furniture-into-creative-play-for-kids/ Things like riding cars etc are more in-your-face but no less important for a child's development. This solution would work indoors too - a table with a curtain as the garage door. https://ourhousenowahome.com/2016/07/hide-kids-outdoor-toys-diy-storage-solution.html Enjoy that toys are part of your life now and don't stress that your house doesn't look like a sterile furniture store advertisement. If I walked into your house and the first thing I saw was your children's play area I'd think "Wow, what a wonderful family to grow up in!"...See Morebpath
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