We’ve been in our house for four years now (how?!). On one hand we’ve done so much, considering we started out with literally nothing. On the other hand, there’s SO much more to go and sometimes it’s frustrating. I’m also finding that a lot of the rooms have gone through identity crises and sometimes several of them. Our new maximalist toy room is one of those rooms! And today I’m going to walk you through it.
Room of many identities
The now toy room started out as a bedroom for my niece who lived with us during COVID when she couldn’t find housing for school. We were SO new in the house and I was very pregnant and we were figuring out things like plumbing and flooding together. Once she moved out it and I had Felix, it became my office. My business has always been in the basement, but since I was nursing basically the whole day, I had my little mama cave upstairs and it was great. Until, it wasn’t, when Felix became mobile.
So, down I went into the basement for my new office and the room just kind of became an anything room–still kind of an office, kind of a playroom, kind of a storage room. We officially decided to turn it into a toy room but hadn’t done anything special to it until we partnered with Spoonflower on it and bada bing bada boom–it is LIFE!
Vision for the new toy room
I wanted to go BIG and BOLD on the room and try something new out. Most of the first floor hasn’t been done like the main communal areas–family room, living room–yet so I wouldn’t say that there’s anything really holding me back. Why not go big and bold, huh?! I had recently-ish replaced the light fixture in the room with this more industrial one from Schoolhouse Electric so that it wouldn’t be such a hazard for kids. We had also made some roman shades for the room out of our own Spoonflower stripe as well as this black and white striped chair and I wasn’t in the mood for replacing everything so I needed a wallpaper that would work with the yellow stripes and the green light fixture.
Maximalist toy room
I found this pattern from House of May that, in her words, says “maximalist, Memphis-inspired”. And if you’re not familiar with the Memphis style, go look it up because it was just the dopamine kick that I was needing in my life. And the bonus was that the pattern worked with the yellow stripes of the shades and the green of the light fixture. That’s mostly what I was looking for!
Spoonflower challenged me to do a statement wallpaper and this one is perfect for it because anything else would probably be too much. I decided to remove the calendar that my kids obviously weren’t using to schedule play dates and extra curriculars and Jenny and I hung it up in about an hour before I had to jet off to school pick ups. And that right there shows the beauty of the product. They’re peel-and-stick option is so so good. It’s such a great quality product and can easily be taken down to adjust but also maintain its stick.
I wasn’t planning on doing anything else to the right but once the wallpaper went up, the adjoining walls seemed to lonely that I had to paint them. I went with a lilac called Grape Ice from Benjamin Moore that might appear more purple in these photos than in real life. It’s a pretty soft lilac that has been so fun to try out. I’ve never had a purple in my house, in fact, I’ve never loved purple, but put it with the right colors and I’m for any color really.
The colors
I ADORE a lilac with bright red and found that Ikea has a new red color on their frames so I blew up my kids portraits and made them a focal point for one of the walls. LOVE that color combo! I used their red frames on all the walls for different art work and love keeping that cohesive.
The boys have a little market stand from here that we use as a lemonade stand in the summertime and house in the toy room. Although the colors worked in the space, I had some extra fabric from our own Spoonflower collection and decided to replace it with a simple sew up job. I love how it looks! Brings an additional color to the space.
The organization
Over the winter holiday, I spent some time scouring Facebook Marketplace, my favorite place to hang out, looking for Ikea storage units. I placed them around the room for easy access for the kids to the toys. Originally I wanted to cover all the toy boxes with crazy patterns but after the wallpaper went up, I realized that it was going to be TOO much so Elizabeth, our sewing intern last year, made some out of this coordinating stripe and I replaced a few here and there and love the detail it adds. I think it’s such a great way to customize your space with just a bit of fabric. Elizabeth is making a tutorial for us that I’ll share soon!
I added a couple of throw pillows to the chair with coordinating fabrics from House of May like this one with little yellow houses and this blue check one.
Comfort plus
One of my biggest fails and then biggest wins is that I ordered a black and white striped rug to cover more of the space of the room. It came it and it was BONKERS crazy with the wallpaper. You know I always try and go hard on pattern, but this was nuts. Plus the quality of the rug wasn’t great so it was an easy “no way”. I didn’t know where I was going to find a rug that worked in time and Ikea really delivered with this solid green. It’s solid but yet interesting with the textured geometric lines. Plus, it’s so comfortable to sit on when kids are playing. Big fan!
Anyway, the kids love it, I think it’s fun and I love how it all came together so quickly and so well!
Get the look!
House of May statement wallpaper
House of May throw pillow
House of May blue check pillow
Yellow Stripe The House That Lars Built fabric
Market Stand
Black and white chair
Green rug
Black and lilac fabric for toy bins
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