I have a bit of an issue with living rooms cluttered with toys and juvenile furniture all over dining rooms. Growing up, our toys stayed in our bedrooms. That's where we played, if we wanted to play with something outside of our bedroom we were only allowed to take one toy with us so toys weren't scattered all throughout the house. The only exception to this rule was my baby doll. I could take Baby Baby with me anywhere! (I was quite creative with my baby doll name!) Anyway, I've often wondered how I would handle this when we had a baby. I want my children to feel like they are welcome in the adult areas but I don't want my house to look like a toy tornado hit it!
I love how my brother and sister-in-law are dealing with this right now with my little nephew. They have a few items they keep in the living room, a blanket or two and a couple of toys. The toys get changed out so it's not like the only things Graham gets to play with in the living room are the same 2 toys all the time! But after play time is over, everything is put away. This might seem like a hassle to pull out a blanket and toys and put away a blanket and toys every time he wants to play, but it keeps the living room look picked up and welcoming.
We have this ottoman:
It has lots of storage inside so I plan for that to be the area where I can throw everything when I'm picking up. I understand there will be things like swings or bouncy seats that will be in the living room, but I'm definitely the type of person that needs to put those away each night and pull them back out the next day when I need them. I like for my house (especially my living room) to be picked up each night before bed.
As Robby gets older he's going to need a place to sit in the living room, and I LOVE this chair! I saw it a while back at Target, but in brown:
I can just imagine him sitting in this little chair looking so cute!! Here are some other chairs I found that I liked that can just fit right into an "adult" living room:
Now onto the dining room, we just got a new dining room table that we both LOVE! Tim and I have a thing for dark wood. We just love the look of it and have kept with that in the pieces of furniture we have picked up as we've been married. Here is the table we just purchased:
Here is a kid's table I think would go nicely in the dining room when the time comes:
It starts out shorter, then the bottom sculpted part of each of the table legs can be added to make it taller as he grows. How much nicer will that look in the dining room than a plastic table and chairs?
