Challenge Accepted!

So the slump from weeks past has FINALLY ended and I have moved on with my old decor dilemmas and have dreamed up some new projects to start working on.  A fresh year, a fresh list of projects and boy do I have some big ones!!  So after some researching of my own I made some decisions about what I think I (and ultimately my husband who brings my dreams to a reality) want to tackle next......THE OFFICE (aka the toy room).  With three little ones under the age of 6 and grandparents who love to spoil them, we have a lot of toys.....no joke an unbelievable amount of toys!!  When we were searching for our dream house I wanted a place where all the toys could go and the kids could play and I wouldn't have to be stumbling over legos, Thomas trains, barbies, and hotwheels cars all day, and then when the day was over I could just close the door and magically the toys would disappear from view......ahhhhhh heaven!!!

So initially we had a blank canvas in the office.....so I brought in some of those cheap put together cubby things and some storage shelves and at first it was great.....but now I'm finding half their toys don't fit in the cubbies, and they've broken the cheap storage shelves (no shock there!).  In addition, we've added the couch and chair that once lived in our front "little living room" until we got new furniture, and are clearly too big for the office space......so now we seem to be back at square one where the toy room is just a place to put things with no organization and no room to really play in so it ends up out in the living room and the hallways and I'm doing just the things I dreamed I would be avoiding......ouch and ugh!!!

I am completely embarrassed to show you all this, but we all have to face our fears and just so you get an idea of the exact chaos I'm talking about here are some pictures of our toy room as it currently looks:

The even scarier part of these pictures is actually the room doesn't look half bad today, leading me to believe their rooms are probably unbearable :-(

So my new challenge is to clean this place up and get it organized!!  From day one I wanted a big built in book shelf along the back wall so I could have a place to store their 8,000 books (maybe that's slightly exaggerated....ha!), and neat baskets of cars and blocks, games, puzzles, art supplies (which are currently invading the morning room and pantry), and the like.  I wanted this room to allow the kids to play with their toys but also have comfy seating and a TV so the kids could watch their shows or play video games with friends, and where I could sit comfortably and play games with them or read stories, or watch TV if my husband is using the living room TV.  So this room would not only be a toy room but somewhat a den as well, and in the future an actual office or place to do homework etc.  We often refer to this room not only as the toy room but as the conference room as well since we often go in there and lock the door so we can actually hold an adult conversation or take an uninterrupted phone call when needed and drown out the kids yelling in the background. So in short I have high hopes for this room!!!

So this morning I finally proposed my ideas and plans to my husband and he has accepted the challenge and is already trying to figure out the details to make it work.  To give you a peak of what I've proposed here are some inspirational pics:

 I am in love with the bookshelves with the cabinets at the bottom and I think that is what we are most leaning towards so I can hide some bigger kids items behind closed doors.  So we shall see what happens in the next couple weeks.  Unfortunately my husband and I have some goofy schedules and with three little ones our projects don't get completed as quick as we would like but at least we have one in progress and in the works!!!  If you have any advice, ideas or inspiration we would love to hear from you......and we'll keep you posted of our progress!!!

Until next time.....Happy decorating!!