Toy Room Makeover from Target

This post is sponsored by Target, all opinions are my own.

One of the most heinous rooms of my house has always been the room my guests see immediately to the right of my front door as they walk in. I believe it’s meant to be a small dining room, but it’s transformed from a dumping room, to an office, to a kids toy room over the years and honestly…it’s been quite an eyesore. Last year we got a small couch and rug for the room, but it still just became a dumping ground for college diplomas, old pictures, and junk. Determined to break the cycle, I headed to my local Target last weekend to get organized and turn my toy room into a space my guests would admire vs. secretly judge me for. So today, I’m SO excited to share with you my Toy Room Makeover with the help of Target and show you how simple changes to a room can make a BIG difference! Let’s see the before, shall we?

So…we have internet modems, printers, office paper/bills/family photos…dumb baseball trophies, old boxes that used to contain technical equipment…and lots of frames. And more frames. And yes, then there’s that one awkwardly hanging photo above the couch that’s much too high and small for the space…this is another example of “bloggers are real people with dirty, unorganized homes too,” folks!! Want to see the after?!

So I decided what I really needed was to utilize my shelves in the room to be FUNCTIONAL AND PRETTY! What a novel idea, right? Find items that can make the room look like a real toy room that kids play in, but also keep a functional AND adult aspect to it, as well.

First, I cleared EVERYTHING off the shelves and took measurements of height, length, and depth dimensions and counted how many shelves I had to work with. It’s SO hard to shop for items for shelves and be disappointed to find the seemingly perfect item and then not have it fit on the shelf. So go equipped with measurements!

I set off to Target and started thinking…where could I find such items? Sometimes, it’s as simple as searching in the office area! Target had a ton of great Nate Berkus office stuff that I really liked. The nice thing is that the gold color of the decor keeps it trendy and adult like, but adds the fun and whimsy that a toy room should really have. So I picked up a magazine rack to organize coloring books, I found a great gold turtle as a statement piece, and I picked up a little gold bulldog tape dispenser for another fun touch. Along the way I also came across two cute gold jacks that I used as another fun element on the shelves to add some character and make it really childlike for the room.

I also picked up a cute canvas print along the way, as well, as a fun reminder for my kids….

From there, I also thought about things I really wanted organized! For us, we have quite a collection of colored pencils, crayons, markers, and books. So I really wanted to find functional and pretty storage for the room. So next I bought some different bins from a combination of the kids toy section (those cute 1 and 2 wire baskets) and the general storage bins section at Target. Some of them had chalkboards on the front, other selections had great striped baskets in a variety of colors and more….

We organized a bin of books, a striped bin of games….

Bins of super heroes and dart guns…bins of baby books, crayons, and coloring paper…all organized!! Whew! Sigh of relief!

And you know what, maybe you won’t be invited to show your house in a Better Homes and Gardens Magazine anytime soon, but your space is now functional, practical, and pretty!!

SO much better, right?!

And it’s ok to still keep some odes to your family in the meantime too…photos are ok, but space them out, try to add different unique pieces to your shelves, and when in doubt, re-use some of the items in your home as decor. I used a cute colorful wooden puzzle we already had for my daughter as a fun item for the shelves. It works great because it defines the space as a playroom, but also adds colors and character to your space for free !!

The last thing I did was remove the photo over the couch and use hexagon corkboard tiles to create a fun little corkboard for my kids art and school work. Now instead of those drawings covering your fridge, you have a designated place to hang them that also doubles as wall art. Finally, I added a cute pre-made pennant banner from Target to top the whole look off and really designate my space as a kids area.

Overall, my shopping trip took about two hours to find everything I needed and I spent about $200 to completely reorganize my space!! I LOVE how it turned out and it finally feels like a space my kids can be kids in now…a space where ALL of the room functions to hold, sort, and organize their toys so that they don’t forget about them and so mommy can breathe a sigh of relief!

Be sure to check out Target online and in stores for ideas on how to turn your shelves into a functional and stylish extension of your living space! You’d be surprised at how easy it can be!

Find your style @Targetstyle