Our Playroom in the Sunroom

Our house has a pretty spacious sunroom off of our kitchen.  It's described as a 3-season room, but to be comfortable in it, it's more of a 2-season room.  Spring and Fall.  There isn't any heating or air conditioning out there and it has windows all around it with absolutely no insulation.  Needless to say, in the summer it is unbearably hot and humid and in the winter it is unbearably cold.

When we started moving our things into the house, the toys just ended up out there.  Our bedrooms are all fairly small and there isn't much space for the kids to keep a lot of toys in their rooms.  Our basement wasn't the best option for a playroom, simply because it's not exactly finished to my liking (though my husband had no problem turning it into his man cave) and it's just a lot easier to keep an eye on the kids while they are on the main floor and not have to worry about them being up and down the stairs all of the time.  So, despite the temperature issues in the sunroom, we decided to make it our playroom.  We attempt to make it better in the summer with a few fans and in the winter with a space heater.

This is what it looked like when we first saw the house.

It really would make a lovely sunroom for adults to relax in, but then where would our millions of toys go?!

Here it is in all of its playroom glory on this snowy December day!  

I did a copycat storage bench for the one corner of the room using two Expedit sheving units from IKEA.  The original idea is from Jen at I Heart Organizing.  You can find her detailed instructions on how to do it here.  It's my favorite area in our playroom.  And it's the only place for adults to actually sit in here anyway.

I purchased some of the toy labels from a well known organizer in blogland.  Her name is Alejandra and you can purchase the labels from her store here.  I also found some other labels at Confessions of a Slacker Mom.  You can download them for free here.  I printed them all out and ran them through my Purple Cows laminator (purchased this for $19.99 when it was half off at A.C. Moore).  I affixed them to the containers and bins using Scotch Multi-Purpose Fasteners.

The bins along the wall are from Target's Itso collection.  I got them over a year and a half ago.  I am not sure if they are being discontinued, but I see that their selection has recently dwindled down to an end cap.  They snap together with little plastic pins.  They work fine for what we need, but sometimes come undone due to the kids pulling the fuller bins in and out.  Eventually I want to replace them with 2 of the 8-shelf Expedit units.  

I have an ongoing list of things that I still want to do with this space.  Some will happen in time and some will most likely never happen.  

1. New carpeting/flooring
2. Some type of window treatments
3. Replace Itso bins with Expedits
4. Paint the TV stand
5. Replace lighting fixtures
6. Paint the ceiling/walls (aka the space in-between the windows)
7. A permanent solution to the heating and cooling
8. Replace the tall bookshelf with more Expedit benches
9. Replace the princess folding table and chairs with something sturdier and gender neutral
10. Do a better job of organizing the bins in the ceiling cubby area.  Or whatever you want to call it.

Just to clarify, our playroom RARELY looks like this!  :)

Now off to enjoy this cozy snow day with my family!  Happy playing everyone!

Linking up to these amazing blogs!