There have been a few challenges that have accompanied moving into our new home. Many of them involve trying to fit old familiar things into new places. This doesn’t cause too much stress for me because I’m secretly excited about the organizing opportunities ahead.
Hmmm, that might have something to do with my burning passion to reunite with my label maker; it’s been packed in a box for the last 6 months. Is it possible to go through label maker withdrawal? 🙂
In our last home, we had a convenient corner hutch that perfectly fit and stored all of our games and puzzles. Sadly, that hutch is no longer with us *sniff, sniff*. So, I was forced to find our collection a new spot, which turned out to be the coat closet. It just needed a little customization but it was a logical choice for two reasons.
First, the side of the closet was deep enough for storage, yet shallow enough to easily pull out what we need. And second, it was underutilized because we only wear cold weather coats about 3 months out of the year.
PLUS, I knew I could manage some way to store our overgrown mess of games and puzzles ORDERLY. Yep, organization ended up being the solution that allowed both our pile of family fun and our infrequently used outerwear to share a small space. Dual efficiency, my dream come true. 🙂
One more consideration was our pre-school aged daughter. I’m trying to guide her independence in some areas. I want her to be able to access the games she is able (and allowed) to play. On the other hand, I do NOT want her getting into some games I consider too old for her or have too many pieces to lose/break.
I find training independence runs a fine line between teaching new skills and avoiding temptation for my Little One. 🙂 So, storing everything shallow and vertical on shelves solves my problem by keeping what is too old for her out of reach.
After a Home Depot run, some detailed measuring, and my PATIENT husband’s help, we had ourselves a homemade shelf system. I customized it to our specific gaming needs; (3) 11″ deep Melamine shelves for the upper levels and (4) 16″ deep shelves below.
I chose Melamine covered shelves for the durability I anticipate this closet will need.You can see I was so excited to snap a picture that I forgot to paint the unfinished wood supports. At least you get a good idea of the transformation that took place. In case you’re wondering, the top two green boxes are also game related. One holds all our Play-doh, conveniently out of reach and out of sight for a certain 4-year-old girlie. The other contains all our miscellaneous items like playing cards, dice games, etc.
Oh, and the white basket down on the floor holds all the Play-doh toys/supplies. I don’t mind if she gets those out by herself or brings the whole basket over to the table. Play-doh toys are no big deal if they get strewn around the room when I’m not looking. Play-doh, on the other hand, has a nasty way of smooching itself into the carpet if played with unsupervised… and will therefore remain up high. 🙂
FYI: I purposely did not detail our shelf construction to keep the post short (and because there are so many talented blog writers out there who educate perfectly in this department), but please feel free to remark in the Post a Comment section below and I’ll answer any questions!
