Messy Toys? Flip Them The Bird! How To Make Toy Storage Look Good
If you have kids, you probably have a corner in your living room that looks like this!
Luckily, it’s tucked around a corner and at the end of the day we usually stash everything in this area, but annoyingly, it can be seen from the sofa, where we are generally sitting in the evening to relax. So I’ve spent many evenings plotting my revenge on this mess. The problem is that so many toys migrate from upstairs and rarely ever make their way back up to the kids bedrooms, but it is actually nice to have a dedicated toy area downstairs, as this is where we usually all spend time together, but I just didn’t want it to look like this!
I knew I wanted a black cabinet with rattan details, but the options out there were either the wrong size for the space, or way above budget (for simple toy storage anyway), so after some hunting I came across this Cabinet form Vida XL, for a very reasonable price, I’d discounted it at first because there were a few things I didn’t like about it, like the colour of the hinges and legs, and the door pulls really needed changing! But after usuccessfully searching for a couple more weeks, I decided to buy it anyway, and make few changes to make it look like I wanted it to.
I didn’t like the combo of the light wood base with the black, and the the door pulls just didn’t seem to suit the cabinet, especially with the silver hinges, there were just too many colours going on, so I decided to simplify it to just black and brass to make the rattan detail really stand out.
This was a really simple hack, I planned to have everything I needed, the black matt spray paint and the door pulls, before assembling the cabinet, and did it all in one evening. I put together the base with legs and spray-painted it in two or three coats, and while it dried (spray paint dries in minutes), I assembled the rest, painting the hinges once they were in, and simply fitted the new raw brass Taipei T-Bar door pulls from Dowsing & Reynolds, instead of the ones the cabinet came with.
Hack complete in one evening, and with the toys loaded in neat baskets inside, I decided to make a real feature of this little corner by hanging a framed Berlin Arches No.2 print from Desenio above it, and found these two curved ceramic vases at H&M Home which work so well! Continuing the with the soft curves, I suspended the Luna Opal light bulb, above the cabinet, also from Dowsing and Reynolds. And the final gesture is of course the gold peace hand ornament (flipped) by Rockett St George!
TIP
Simply Suspending a light on a plug-in light bulb holder, with a couple of tea cup hooks screwed into the ceiling, is a great way to add a light if you don’t have sockets in the area, and can’t use a lamp because the cable will trail across a doorway, for example.
I hope this post gives you some inspiration to organise those messy toys! We all need a calm, relaxing space in the evenings. especially in these challenging times.
