Tales of a Small House, Part II: The Play Area

I thought I'd share a few photos of Eliza's play area in our house.  It's in the corner of our living room.  It's 4 feet by 5 feet, so of our home's 920 total square feet, it only takes up 20 square feet!  But we pack a lot into the small space for our girl, and she really does seem to enjoy it.  It's proof that you don't need a lot of space to have fun.  

A key to making this space work is limiting the number of toys in it.  We try to rotate certain toys in and out (I keep a few in the dining room closet and swap them out once in a while), but really, Eliza doesn't have that many toys to begin with, and that helps when living in a small house.  It's also part of how we choose to raise her - without too much stuff - but I suppose that's the topic for another post.

I got that mat from the thrift store, and it's nice because it's small, I think it's 3'x3', and cushy for sitting and kneeling on.  I bought the little carpet sample from the car wash, and it's nice for me and hubby to sit on when we're playing, instead of sitting on the hardwood.  The hanging organizer is from Ikea, and I hung it with command hooks (I love those things!).  It's great for storing little odds and ends, and the tea set lives there when it's not in use, too.  The little square cubbies used to serve as my husband's night stand.  Now it stores Eliza's drum, xylophone, puzzles, and a few other toys.

Eliza's bookshelf is the bottom half of our hutch (a girl can never have too many books!).  I use the top of it for the few knick-knacks I have that are meaningful to me, and for family photos.  See?  You can marry kid stuff and adult stuff in (somewhat) perfect harmony!  

As you can see on the left and right sides of the hutch, I hung up a few things - hanging storage is useful because it gets things off the ground and instantly makes things look more organized.  Again, I just used command hooks because I didn't want to mar the wood hutch (it belonged to my grandparents and I love it).  In the corner is a basket - you can barely see it in the bottom right corner - that currently serves as a catch-all for a number of random toys, baby dolls and some baby doll clothes.  I was just thinking this morning that I could probably organize this little corner a bit better, but it works for now.

Eliza's horsey purse from Auntie Kelly.  She adores it.  I do, too :)

She often stands in her fruit and veggies bin :)

There you have it. It's nothing fancy, it's all done very inexpensively, and it's 20 square feet of fun!