A Clean Freezer Room = Play Room

When we moved into our house almost 6 years ago, the basement was so cold and drafty with nothing, but paneling (with no insulation behind it) and linoleum floors over concrete. When we finished our basement, we decided to do the whole space except for one room at the very bottom of our stairs. This room still has the block walls and concrete floors. Since that is where our deep freezer is housed, it became known as "The Freezer Room". Now, I am not one to ever misuse a space and believe everything can be used for something. For years, this area has served as a junk room to throw stuff when you didn't want to carry it to the garage. Well, enough was enough...this room should be used for something!

6 kids + large toys = Play Room!!

Let's take the tour:




This is walking in the room from the stairs. Notice we just pieced together a few leftover mismatched carpet pieces (hey, this room is not for display, just to play in) We also added a McDonalds road rug along with a discovery toys road mat.





Straight ahead to the left is our board game shelf...notice I put the pop-up toddler playhouse right in front of it blocking access, otherwise the board games would be down constantly mixing pieces which drives me insane!!! Straight ahead is the big dress up clothes bin (my kids love playing dress up and they have just about everything they need to dress as anybody they want!!) To the right of that is the play food bin just behind the table and chairs set and swivel chair that were mine as a child (boy, they just don't make things like they used to, nowadays it would have fallen apart after just a few years!)





Turning to the right now, we have the white shelf full of Little People playsets along with the kid's real cash register (just so it is up out of the way) Straight ahead, we have the old wooden entertainment center from our game room. We were excited that this fit because it has so much shelf space to put toys (more Little People playsets and books) and we can keep a constant stream of kiddie dvds going while they are playing. In between the wall and shelf we have placed one of our many "pop-up" houses and we stored the bulkier ones between the shelf and the entertainment center.





To the left of the doorway, a better look at the entertainment center storage and a look at our deep freezer, hence the original name "freezer room". Don't you just adore that little chair in front of the entertainment center? It was a $1.99 find at Goodwill :) We were also able to perfectly fit the bargain $5 Sesame Street Tool Bench I got from a yard sale this summer :)




To the right of the doorway, we have another toy box, Lego cube, and train table (another awesome $10 Goodwill find) Our treadmill is standing up behind the train table and blocks the kids from the other half of the room which will serve as my scrapbooking area. I wanted an area where I could leave things lay without wrecking the house and keep an eye on the kids at the same time. Perfecto!!

I am very pleased with this space!!