Arlyn’s Dining Room-Turned-Playroom Update: See Where She Landed After A TON Of Reader Advice

I am absolutely blown away by the response and the engagement in my last post about possibly taking my dining room and turning it into a dedicated play space in order to bring some peace to my living room. There were so many great ideas in the comments; some that I decided weren’t right for me, and others that I acted on.

So today, I want to walk you through what has changed since I wrote that post a few weeks ago, where I currently am mentally about it all, and where I’m planning to go with both spaces.

First and foremost, the advice I knew I needed but just didn’t have the impetus to act on: GET RID OF HALF THE TOYS! While many of you recommended I purge, I’m entering phase one of this: keep almost everything (except for the things my daughter is obviously too old for), and find a way to rotate things out. I may find that I don’t want to spend the energy rotating, and that no one misses anything that’s tucked away waiting its return, and it’ll be refreshing to know I can pass things on to other families.

Another piece of advice I was given was to pick one space, designate it as the “adult” room, and make adjustments to the other to accommodate my toddler and all her stuff. After a lot of hemming and hawing that helped us realize what we really needed *and* wanted, I decided to actually leave my dining room how it is: as a dining space and casual home office for myself.

But that’s not to say there aren’t things I can do to our current living space to make it less cluttered AND ALSO a more practical play space. Let’s get into it.

Here’s Where We Started

Alright, so the above and below were the set up of the toy situation in both my living and dining areas. What’s wild is I remember taking these photos not even three weeks ago and thinking “I mean, it’s not that bad, is it?” I knew it could use improvement—otherwise what was even the point of writing the post—but I had gone so blind to the toys stacked on top of the toys that it felt normal to me.

I look at it now and my eyes feel uncomfortable. Heavy. Dizzy. Overwhelmed. There are puzzles on top of puzzles, things pushed behind stacks of books, drawers that could barely open because they were stuffed to the brim. I know now that my daughter played in spite of the madness, not because of it.

Someone in the comments recommended bringing this one IKEA Trofast unit down to the living room so they all lived together, and it made me remember that that was always the point, but we couldn’t manage it because we had too much else in the way. The little messy-looking table there used to be a baby activity center that comes apart to become a toddler table. We keep it in the dining room because I feel okay with my daughter using her finger paints, watercolors and acrylics here where there is limited potential for permanent damage (it’s also where she plays with her kinetic sand so it doesn’t get lodged into the carpet). Spoiler: I haven’t yet come up with a solution for where she can do her arts and crafts, but hey…maybe someone here will know what to do!

Where We Are Now

OMG THIS IS SO MUCH BETTER I’M SCREAMING. Two Sundays ago, during my daughter’s nap, I put on my sound cancelling headphones, blasted early 2000s jams, and got to work. I went drawer by drawer, pulling things out. I assessed everything we had, organized them by groupings, then took half (or more) of any given category of things, and put them away in bins I already had in my garage. I also collected all of the toys she was well past the appropriate age for and put them in a bin to save for a potential future child. If that child never comes, then buh bye.

I also took out my label maker and labeled the bins by rough category: things like “balls and cars” and “dress up” and “paint supplies.” There are two bins I couldn’t quite pin down but I’m okay with that for now. I can be flexible, after all (she says, twitching).

All the stuff that was crammed on top basically disappeared with the exception of my daughter’s Tonies (a little music box that plays songs and stories), the scale she loves to throw things in, and some books she grabs regularly.

I also cleared out 2/3 of my IKEA Besta unit under the TV wall for some closed storage. So far, she almost never opens those to play with anything in there, so that might not work for the long haul (unless it’s more of a bank than an in-play storage solution).

Here’s everything I pulled out of her stash and set aside. One of these is going into the garage, and the others are going into her closet to be rotated at the beginning of every month. It’s what we’re calling our “toy library” and my girl was such a champ about it. It’s actually quite cruel to leave these out for her to walk by every day, asking me when she gets to play with the toys in her library haha. But there is a little shift that needs to be done in her bedroom to allow room for these. Hopefully it can be complete in a week or so once I find her a dresser (and move a small, not-so-functional dresser out of her closet).

It’s hard to believe that ALL OF THIS was downstairs in the living room. The living room STILL has too many toys in it, even after taking these away. In an ideal world, I’ll get to a place where we have half what we currently have now, but I’ve gotta start somewhere. Listen, I’m the type of person who brings 14 undies in my suitcase for a 3-day vacation “just in case,” so it’s not easy to just chuck three-quarters of my daughter’s prized possessions. I know the studies about how children focus harder and longer and play better when they have fewer things to play with, so I’ll get there eventually. Give me grace, please. 🙂

Where We’re Going

So, part of the plan for the living space was to make it work better as a play space, which for me meant two things: 1) Make it look more fun by giving it a little refresh, and 2) Swap out the coffee table for something small that could be moved out of the way to create an open play area.

Because our rug has different pile heights, it’s fairly terrible at facilitating things like balls or cars rolling, little toddler chairs being pushed in and out, and even sliding a coffee table around to make room for…anything. Not to mention it’s had three years of constant living with a small child and has dot marker blemishes, embedded kinetic sand and dried Playdoh…it’s a full-on Monet. Looks pretty from afar, but a big old mess up close. I still love the rug and plan on getting it professionally cleaned, and saving it for when we have a larger home one day in need of rugs.

Swapping out the rug kind of inspired me to consider a few style swaps for some other things in the space, mostly to make it feel more “us” now: colorful, playful and happy. Here’s what I’ve come up with, quickly:

Sectional | Rug | Coffee Table | Blue Oak Doors for Besta Unit | Curtain | Quilt | Yellow Bolster | Olive Round Pillow | Flax Linen Pillow | Floral Pillow | Solid Burgundy Pillow

I know I don’t want a rug that will add too much visual clutter because that’s what I’m actively fighting against. I like the idea of a solid color rug, but also like the subtle pattern on this olive and cream grid. My existing white curtains have always been too short for that window (a hold over from my previous home), and were put up one weekend as a “just for now” solution to provide privacy…that has lasted two years. I’ve toyed with a pattern here, as well, but worry that the sheer number of panels needed to cover this three-pane sliding glass door would be A LOT for my senses. A soft steely blue is more up my alley right now.

Oh, and for anyone who remembers my post about updating my IKEA Besta unit, I love the light blue stain of these door fronts, tops and sides from Fronteriors. I believe the color is actually a bit brighter in real life, but it’s so fun and different!

I think a smaller rectangular coffee table would work far better than the two-tiered round one we have now, and I envision taking it and pushing it against the wall where one of the Trofast units is (which I plan on moving upstairs potentially). It could serve as a “desk” for my girl as it’s a good height for her existing chair; this would open up the center of the room for more playing. Then, after bedtime, when it’s adult time, we can easily shift the table back into place to hold our drinks, laptops, casual dinners, etc. I’m not sold on this exact table, as I’d prefer to find something solid wood and second hand, but that’s the gist of what I’d be looking for.

Okay, so now an idea I’m throwing around my brain cells:

Storage Unit: Trofast Storage Combination | Fabric: Siena Stripe Linen, Buff | Trim: Ric Rac Tape Medium

I have some mixed feelings about this. The “design-y” part of me loves trying new things and challenging myself to find solutions to “problems.” But the parent in me doesn’t want to cover my kid’s stuff and make them have to work to play. Will she see this curtain and internalize that her “stuff” is somehow less-than in her own home? “Mama, why are my toys hiding?” I can almost hear her asking me. “Well, baby, mama’s brain can’t handle seeing lots of different things all at once so I put up a fun curtain, just like over the windows! Let’s see what we can find behind them!” Eh, I’m not landing that one.

Anyway, I digress. I’m intrigued by the concept, but the execution is in question. One way around my girl feeling like her toys are in time out is perhaps to not have the curtains up most of the time, but instead, having them on hand to put up (possibly with velcro?) when it’s just adults in the room or I need a mental/visual break from the clutter. I do worry that it’ll all get too fabric heavy, but in real life they wouldn’t have so many folds in them. I grabbed that photo off the internet to use here and I’d create something flatter. This is the same fabric I have on my curtains in my kitchen (from Tonic Living), and I love it. It has such a soft stripe that adds some oomph without being overkill. An unexpected red moment via some ric rac trim could shake things up.

Now, on to my dining room…

While I still have all those bins (a.k.a. the toy library) hanging out on one side, once I make room in my daughter’s closet for the overflow, this space will be mostly an “adult” space. She’s of course welcome to play in here, but when everything is tucked away, this is MINE. What’s interesting when I look back at this photo is how homogenous it feels. In real life, it’s actually much less boring to my eye. It feels peaceful (when I’m not looking at bins of toys and art supplies and paint-smudged toddler tables) and happy, especially when the curtains are open. But I can see that it could really use a rug to ground it. I skipped having a rug here because my then one-year-old used to eat all her meals here before we set up the breakfast nook, and it was such a gross mess on the floor all the time. No rug would have survived it.

But she’s mostly a civil eater now and rarely frequents this table anyway, so it’s time to finally get what I want: a rug.

These are a few I’m looking at:

Left: Danish Floral Flat-Weave Wool Rug | Middle: Pink, Olive and Beige Traditional Vintage Heriz Serapi Wool Rug | Right: Marli Flatweave Wool Rug by Nina Freudenberger

The Danish Floral rug on the left (especially the ochre one) makes my heart sing. I’ve been itching to add in some more folk-y prints somewhere, and I think it plays nicely with the living space. The rug in the middle is one I’ve crushed on for close to five years, but it might be too heavily printed for what I’m after. And this Nina Freudenberger rug from Lulu & Georgia is another I’ve admired for years, though I worry the colors are too muted. I’m not sure yet, but I know anything would be a vast improvement.

I’d also love to recover the lampshades on my sconces, and figure out my curtains because those are a work in progress. In my last post, I talked about maybe swapping the bar for a bookcase, and that’s a possibility, as well, but I’m going little by little and not sure it’s what the room needs, necessarily.

—

So that’s where I’ve landed. It’s all a work in progress, but I already feel SO SO SO much better sitting in my living room. I literally feel my soul take a deep sigh of relief when I sit on the couch now and look around. Everyone, including our babysitter, knows where all the toys can be put away thanks to my labeling, and some big bulky things that used to live on the floor or under the coffee table now have room inside the TV cabinet. Things are looking up, people.

Thanks to everyone for all your advice. No, I’m not making any drastic moves here, but this is just a reminder to everyone that it’s not always giant changes that make our homes work and feel better, but the little things. Cleaning out one drawer, decluttering one corner, freshening up your curtains…small shifts that can breathe new life into you, your room, and your life.

Stay tuned on this, and as always, if you have any more advice, please chime in in the comments! Until next time…