Tiny Playroom on a Budget

We move a lot.  My fifteen-month-old has lived in three houses and several hotel rooms.

All of our previous playroom have been pretty gigantic, and this one, not so much.

The first step, obviously, is to downsize.  We don't need five sets of blocks, four teasets, or hundreds of stuffed animals.

Once we did that, however, I still needed to free up some space.  Walls are where it's at.

For the stuffed animals, I wanted to do this after seeing it on Pinterest, but those planter baskets are expensive, so I had to figure out a cheaper version.

These laundry baskets were three dollars at Walmart, and the pink spray paint was five dollars.  You can cut them in half with kitchen shears.  My husband had some spare wood in the garage and he figured out a way to attach the baskets to the wall to put our stuffed animals in!!

First he drew an outline of the basket on the wall, then nailed the boards to the wall so they would sit just inside the baskets.  Then he used a staple gun to attach the baskets to the wood.  Stuff it with loveys and there you go!!  I think it looks SOO cute!!  Especially under the crayon art, which you can read about here.

For the bookshelves I really wanted to do these, but those double curtain rods are expensive, so I went for this gutter method instead.  The gutters are like 8 bucks at Lowe's.  Cut it in half, screw it to the studs in the wall, load it up with books and you're done!!  Awesome!!

Taking the books and stuffed animals off the playroom floor opened up a world of opportunity in there.  I was able to put all the puzzles in or on the cubby, which freed up the table for Diego's rescue center.  Some cubbies were also freed for baby toy storage.

Getting the stuffed animals out of the toybox allowed me to use the box for dress-up clothes, which allowed me to get the giant basket they were in out of there completely!  It's going to replace the laundry hamper I cut in half (irony?).

These puzzles were like $10 for five at Target, and the puzzle saver comes in seven dollar sheets at Amazon.  Super-cute, super-cheap artwork for any room.

The Hello Kitty shower curtain can't be used on their shower now because the one in this house has a door, so it's gracing their window and couldn't be more adorable.

Take the doors off your closet and it really opens up the space.  The kitchen, shopping cart, and hanging baskets fit there perfectly!  The purple one was eight dollars at Walmart and the orange one was 2 euro in Germany.  The bins on the shelf at the top hold their craft supplies - paint, sand art, scratch art, markers, crayons, you name it.  They were originally purchased to go in the cubbies, but I was able to separate them to get double usage out of it for this room :)

I am just in love with this space :)