What do I do with all these toys?!?!?

Question

I have 2 kids and a very tiny house. They each have a huge toy chest. Right before last Christmas, I cleaned out both toy chests so each were a little less than half full. Then my MIL comes over and exclaims "Why don't these kids have any toys?!" Then Christmas came and now the toy chests are overflowing. I mean WAY overflowing. A lot of stuff that was given to my son are really nice large toy tractors and farming equipment, too expensive to just be given away. And both kids still play with everything too. We've gone through and removed what they don't play with, and they are still heaping. What do I do with all these toys? How would you store all these tractors and equipment? When they are all in the toy box, then it fills it way too fast. The tractors won't fit under his bed (a couple are so big he can almost ride on them). He's too small to have them put on higher shelves. Help!

Answer 1

I went crazy for my son's first Christmas and there is toys all over the floor. So I went to Walmart.com and under the baby furniture section theres a cubby thingy for $80 and it has 9 holes that you can put baskets in. That did the trick for us I have wicker baskets too. Eachday we pull out a new basket and those are his toys for the day, he's young enough to get excited about them again if he doesnt see them for a while.

Answer 2

buy totes...they are wonderful things lol.  we have fairly large rooms in most of the house here where we live,,,EXCEPT the kids rooms...those 2 rooms are the tiniest things ive ever saw.. i hate it,, anyhow i got my daughter a set of bunk beds for her room, then bought 4 big totes that will slide right under the bottom one and hold all her stuff. my son is only 8 months old so we dont have that problem with him yet, but im sure his turn is coming. the bunk beds were 200 dollars, but well worth it with the space it freed up  with the bottom bunk setting kind of high off the floor. of course you dont have to do bunk beds either....just any bed that sits kind of high.  good luck! :0)

Answer 3

Do you have a garage or storage building outside your house where you could put them.  It would probably be more fun to play with them in the dirt anyway so you could store them outside.  If you don't have a building, you can buy the big plastic storage bins at Walmart or Home Depot and use it for storage.  As long as you keep them dry, they won't rust and they'll be out of your way.  I have a mother who's a lot like your MIL.  I asked her to give the kids savings bonds instead of toys but she just loves watching them get excited over a special toy.  We generally do a big cleanout every spring and take sacks of toys to local charity thrift stores.

Answer 4

You could get a shelf like a book shelf that has lower shelfs on it, make sure its bolted to the wall, and buy storage bins for it, that way it looks nice.  The things that they dont play with all that often you can put on the higher shelfs and you can also put pictures or whatever on them to make it look nicer.  I go through the same thing with my gma when it comes to buying my daughter things, last Christmas she was only 1 week old, and yet there was more gifts for her then there was for anyone else.