photo copyright ikea 2009 all rights reserved
Every year at this time, it becomes painfully obvious at our house that despite a measure of cutting back, plenty of weeding through and donating, and cunning storage ideas here, there, and everywhere, the sad truth is that the toys are taking over. It doesn't help that there are four kiddies, and one has a birthday uncomfortably close to Christmas -- it's a bit of a yikes moment. So, what to do, -- especially about Teddy's extreme train collection, and our family's bordering on obsessive board game and craft collections? The charming vintage trunks and dressers, and even the vintage office and store filing cabinets, with lots of sweet little drawers, aren't quite filling the need. So despite our general penchant for figuring out how to reuse old things, whether ours or just new to us, we took a family trip to our local ikea this afternoon. Our motto at Ikea, esp. when children are along, is to come prepared, so I'd measured my space, perused the catalog, and even checked the website to see if my local store had the item in stock . . . . so, an hour later, success! -we loaded our three ikea ps cabinets and brought them home. Now we're just waiting for dad to come home and build them really quick. They are bright red, quite trim and modern, and have a locker/institutional feel that i hope will work with my powder coated old lab stools from Cal Poly, which are happily red, too. My plan is just to line the cabinets up along a wall in our little living room next to the kitchen -- they are just the right height at 24" to allow Teddy to chuff his choo-choos right along the top. And i can close the doors on some more of the games, puzzles, kaleidoscopes, knights, playmobil people on bikes, dancing bears . . . you get the idea! I'll post a photo when it's done.
photo copyright lakbdesign 2009 all rights reserved
so that's our kitchen, complete with red powder coated lab stools from Cal Poly in San Luis Obispo, that's next to the little living room where Teddy plays most, and where Ikea ps cabinets in red will hopefully provide the additional storage that we need.
and just to let you know we weren't joking on the reuse old things front, check out these excellent storage solutions that work well, and reuse castoffs in a fun way:
we use these old lockers just as they were meant to be used, except not at school, of course . . . of course, they were an appalling shade of painted over blue/pink/orange cream when we snagged them at Sarasota Architectural Salvage (act quick if you see these -- they are very popular) -- but no worries, our local auto body shop was happy to spray them any one of about two thousand colors for us -
photo copyright lakbdesign 2009 all rights reserved
and here's another, a steel cabinet used for fifty years in a hardware store for nuts and bolts, and now powder coated screaming orange (Teddy's favorite) and used in his room for army guys, matchbox cars, playmobil people, papo knights, and on and on for thirty drawers. i swear it's teaching him to read!
photo copyright lakbdesign 2009 all rights reserved
and another idea, another hardware store castoff, this time with fewer, bigger drawers perfect for craft supplies; stamps, glitter, glue, our nine hot glue guns (don't ask -- we moved across the country multiple times!), stickers, paint . . . this one is refreshingly in its "found" state, minus the coffee streaks (i haven't decided on a paint color, yet).
photo copyright lakbdesign 2009 all rights reserved
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