Pretty, Pretty Playroom

I truly adore my clients. When you are working on someone’s home and their most intimate spaces, and learning about how their life works, naturally you become friends. We laugh a lot, we get to know each other, we text long after the project is done about life and family. It is my favorite part of this job.

These are long term working relationships that become whole house projects. The wonderful thing about working on multiple spaces with someone is that you get to know them, their aesthetic, what is a challenge for them and their family. It becomes easy to know what they are going to want and also what is going to help them the most.

My client Nicole from Darien, CT is one of these clients. Her sweet family has been such a joy to be around and work with. She is the mom to three precious little girls (with a 4th baby—a BOY!—on the way), and is an incredibly organized and together person. But, as anyone with kids knows, there is just not time for overhauling ANYTHING when you are chasing littles around.

And that is where Team House of Prim comes in…

THE PLAN

Priorities & Phases

When thinking about hiring an organizer, I always suggest to work in phases so you aren’t totally overwhelmed mentally with decision fatigue, or financially (because those containers do add up). Overhaul the spaces that are:

1) Going to make the most impact on your day to day life and

2) The areas that are driving you absolutely MAD.

Nicole called me for a multi-space home organization project, and we did a tour of all of her "trouble spots.” Together, we made a list of priorities to help figure out what area should be tackled first. From there, the plan was easy:

Phase 1: Playroom + Play Area Closet
Phase 2: Kitchen + Pantry
Phase 3: Utility Closet + Laundry Room + Linen Closet

Making over her husband’s office into a functional, beautiful, organized play space was at the very top of her list. To give you an idea of their home layout, the office was next to the place most families live: off the kitchen and tv room. A perfect place for the kids to play while Nicole is cooking or feeding the baby in the kitchen—but she was really unhappy with how cluttered everything felt, and that there wasn’t a system in place to keep things in order. This was the perfect place to start.

Supermom Nicole and her three beautiful girls

Before

Look.

Even the MOST organized playroom looks like this on a good day. Let’s not pretend that organization takes away the mess that kids make—especially multiple kids. Unless you want to be following them around like a robot all day, your playroom is going to look like this. The key is to have a smart system in place so that it becomes easy when clean up needs to happen.

Nicole’s space had so many great aspects, she just needed a big edit and some kind of control to the chaos. All of the clutter and no systems were making her feel totally overwhelmed.

After

Voila!

How beautiful did this playroom turn out? Bright, happy, functional, and PRETTY—ready for play and easy to put away.

Here is a peek into how Team House of Prim overhauled this space into a room she and her children were excited to spend time in.

Storage

Easy + Chic (+ affordable)

One of the great things about turning an office into a play space: built in shelving and cabinets, plus drawers for storage. But, that also meant specific measurements and not many options as the bookcases were shallow and wide, which limited what bins we were able to use.

The bins were really important in this project both aesthetically and functionality wise. Nicole has a very clean, classic aesthetic, so whatever we used needed to look neat but not be too hard to maintain. This room is also very visible in her home, so I wanted to make sure we picked something that wouldn’t overwhelm the eye and would look uniform.

Organizationally, I didn’t want Nicole to be locked into super defined organization (I.e. bins within bins to house little barbie shoes and pieces) because her kids are at the age where they will want to play with something, dump it out, and move onto the next—general categories for “dump and play” then easy clean up was ideal.

After lots of research, we decided on using the White Storage Bins from The Container Store. I created custom labels using my Cricut Joy and we went with an understated silver vinyl for the font color that tied in with the rest of Nicole’s home accents. This bin is an unbeatable price point and very easy to replace if needed; plus, it will be easy to rework the categories and labels as the children change what they play with (and as a little boy enters the mix, Nicole is REALLY glad she went with the hearty bin option).

Drawer + Cabinet Organization

A place for everything

Another sore spot for Nicole: the tiny toys the girls loved to play with, but naturally ended up scattered around the room or lost. She knows her kids and realized there was no chance these tiny things would stay organized in the bigger bins, and needed to have a more of a controlled system where Mom could help keep track of everything. Enter: drawer organizers.

I absolutely LOVE the Linus Drawer Organizers from iDesign for any area like this. They have silicone feet, come in all the sizes you will need, and make it easy to create homes for small items.

One other challenge we faced taking a traditional office to a playroom were the deep drawers meant for hanging file folders. Great for hanging files; terrible for a playroom because it becomes a bottomless pit of THINGS.

We repurposed the Acrylic File Boxes our client was no longer using for filing, and used them to house and separate coloring books, sticker books, and others like paint with water workbooks. I connected them with clips from The Container Store—labeling is a must for keeping items like this in order.

For simple, more every day labels, my team and I use the Brother P-Touch Cube Plus. This is a great way to make nicer labels in different fonts (all from your phone!), but without the elbow grease of a Cricut machine and Vinyl materials.

Books +Toys as Decor

Rainbow Bright

When you have beautiful toys—use them as decor!

With the bins being a simple, uniform white, we made the focal point of the room all of the gorgeous wooden toys and organized the books into rainbow formation. The toys will still be played with, books still read, but they double as a pretty visual.

The toys in this playroom are the stunning Grimm’s Wooden Toys, which are Montessori inspired and incredibly well made (I’ve also found others you can shop at different price points—and materials, like silicone—below). Chic AF when it comes to toys.

Zipper Bags for Puzzles + Games

The Best Hack + a Zipper Pouch Size Guide

This is an organization trick I’ve talked about many times before: Zipper Bags. We use them consistently in projects; they are especially perfect for puzzles and games. Pretty when all lined up, ready for play, every color you could want AND takes up so much less space than the eye sore boxes.

To Do: Simply take the game board, pieces, instructions and put them into a zipper bag (and label it). When Team House of PRIM decants puzzles, we use a box cutter to remove the front of the puzzle box so your child will have a visual when working.

I get a LOT of questions about the right sizes for games, puzzles and other items. It drove me crazy when I first started organizing….A3, B4, B7, A4…..!! SO, I made a guide for myself and my team that I’m going to share with you. You're welcome!

Game and Puzzle Bags:

A3: XXL, Best for the BIGGEST of your puzzles and games
B4: XL, Fits most game and puzzles

Best for small game pieces (and keep inside the larger bag):

A4: Medium, we don’t use this one much for games or puzzles but it’s great for small playroom items
A5: Small, I like this size for card games
Bill: Bill Size, I love this size for games that have a lot of smaller pieces that can be combined
B6: XS, Great for small parts (or play money)
B8: XXS, The tiniest pouch. If you want to keep team color pieces separated (think: Blue, Red, Green, Yellow in Sorry), this is a good size

Play Mats

Pictured: The Little Nomad Starlight Play Mat in Starry Night

For play spaces, there are so many beautiful options for play mats and play rugs. The mats from brands like House of Noa and ToddleKind are durable, easy to clean, and easy to replace or change if your space changes. I’m kind of bitter these weren’t an option when my kids were babies because it is SO smart—functional, but you aren’t sacrificing style like I did with the ones that were out in 2013.

I have worked on a lot of playrooms, and many of my clients have the House of Noa mats….they continue to look great after use and nobody has any complaints. If anything, they wish they would have gone bigger with their mat. The great part is you can easily add on tiles! I’ve been eyeing their Standing Mat for my kitchen, too.

Another option I love for play spaces is the Play Rug. Several brands (like Ruggish) carry this version; looks like a rug from afar, but is a soft, Memory Foam Play Mat and gives a bit more cushion than the foam tiles. Many are reversible and have a fun flip side with roadways or other play scenes you can use. And, let’s say you are a Melissa Wood Health fan—these would be perfect for playing and sneaking in a quick workout with your little one.

I hope you enjoyed reading about this room makeover! Below, I’ve rounded up the products we used in this project for —plus, lots of other options to choose from at all different price points!

If you’d like help making your playroom into space that works better for your children AND for you, please get in touch—Team House of Prim is here to help.