Is a playroom practical?

For us it's the living room, and the favorite toy is the couch and loveseat - they use the cushions for building blocks. What I don't like about playrooms is that the kids never use it, they want to be with me - so what's the point? The toys escape and so do the kids.

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I miss our playroom!!!
We had one in our last house and are REALLY wishing we had built one into this house.

In a way, Ethel is absolutely right.
The toys DO escape and so do the kids, but for us, that wasn't the point.
Our playroom was a place to PUT ALL THE TOYS. =)
When we needed to clean up quickly or at the end of the day, all the toys went to the playroom.
Now, we are forever trying to figure out where to stash something or how to rearrange so that everything fits.

One more note: When our friends came to visit with their children, we could relegate the children to the playroom to play so that the parents could actually talk. Kids do play in the playroom when they have play-dates, I might add.

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Playrooms are the best. They will definitely use it during playdates. Plus, it is a place to stash the toys when you're doing a cleanup, even if the toys escape on occasion.

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We have a three bedroom house and use one for our room, our 2 children share one bedroom and the third we use as a playroom, rather than giving the kids separate bedrooms. It took some convincing for me to make the switch (for the first six months of our second child's life they had separate rooms) but I have never regretted it. It's great to have a place to contain the mess!

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We have a playroom and toys do not leave it. If a toy leaves the playroom, we ask once to pick it up...then it is trash. Our playroom was a partial library and electronic haven for the older ages 12&5.
Of course, we have just moved into a bigger house because of the newbies-so we put computers in the older girls rooms and started a new playroom for the twins-

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We also have a playroom and my kids only play in it when friends are over but I love it. It's a great place to keep their toys (my husband calls it the toy storage area) and since I don't have to look at it, the kids are not required to clean it very often. Yes, toys leak out during the day but they all go back in at bedtime.

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While I think a separate playroom is a great idea, just remember that it means YOU are now going to be spending a lot of time in that room too.
While it isn't the prettiest site, our playroom is our great room. That way, I can be in the kitchen or the great room along with Jack and still get some things of my own done.

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We have a playroom between the kitchen and living room. I think it is perfect. I can get things done, dishes put away, and meals prepared, and still see them playing. I'm not sure I'd be as enthusiastic about a dedicated playroom on another floor. I like playrooms that facilitated multitasking, as I'm all about multitasking.

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We decommissioned our home office by moving the computer into an armoire in the living room. The space that was the office now houses all of our toys. We bring a few toys at a time into different rooms of the house (family room, living room, dining room, nursery...) and rotate them out to the toy storage room. Yes, there are toys in practically every room, but only a few, and by rotating them, toys that used to get looked over have been rediscovered.

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We live in a 3 bedroom apartment and have dedicated the bedroom immediately off the living room and kitchen as the playroom. It is great. Most of the toys stay in there and at the end of the day if we have friends over we just shove the few toys that migrated inside and shut the door and the rest of the house is "toy free." Plus when doing studying, or cleaning in the rest of the house the children can be in the playroom essentially out of the way and safe.

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I like the idea of, but lack the space for, a dedicated playroom. However, I do have to wonder if the problem that this solves isn't symptomatic of a bigger issue - we give our kids too much stuff. Sure, there are plenty of items that they need, and a certain amount of stuff that's a welcome convenience for us parents, but overall, children today are simply inundated with STUFF!

Birthdays and Christmas meant a gift or two when my wife & I were kids. Both of our families were of very meager incomes, so birthday & Christmas gifts were sparse. And yet, we’ve decided that because we weren’t showered with dozens of toys the way kids are now, the toys we did receive were more meaningful, more special, and certainly more treasured...

One of my greatest fears when our coworkers thoughtfully arranged a baby shower for us was the mountain of STUFF that we'd receive - and have to figure out where to store! Our home is very modestly-sized, so there just isn't room for mountains of toys. Thankfully, our generous coworkers know us well enough to understand that we're not so much about STUFF, so the gifts they did give were almost all very practical, needed items.

Anyway, I think there'd be much less a need for a playroom if kids today didn't have such massive amounts of toys and stuff.

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My kids like to be near me and like to have cartoons on in the background (or kids music) during the day, so we eventually moved most of their toys out of the bedrooms and into our dining area. Luckily in our house we had room to put the kitchen table in the kitchen. It's convenient because our TV and CD player and my computer are in the living room, which is adjacent to the toy area. We reserved the two lowest shelves of the bookcase for their things, put a large toy box in one corner, and set up a child size table as well as a play rug, easel, and small ball pit. Yes, it means there's bleed over into the living room, but it is SO MUCH more convenient to clean up with them at night, rather than trying to sort out who has which toys, and dragging them all back to the bedrooms. My 3 year old DD does have a toy box and some toys in her room still, because we just couldn't fit everything in the playroom. She has a large doll house and her play kitchen, and they do sometimes both go play in her bedroom for a change of scenery. When we move this summer I am hoping to have a more dedicated area for their things. I know without my bookshelves in their toy area they'd have room for the things that ended up still in DD's bedroom.

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We have a "playroom", it's the loft area of our home that used to be a computer room/library. Instead we've moved the bookshelves and computer into the guest room and got rid of the guest bed to get a futon to make that room more practical for us. The playroom is the room I, as a stay home mom, pretty much live in with my child. We play and enjoy tv there and when it's time for stories or a nap we go into my daughters room away from the activity things and television. When company comes over it's great because all of the kids can play up there, whether it be video games or with my daughters toys. They can also play outside. It keeps the "noise" to a minimum because they are upstairs from the living area where all the adults are, so we can enjoy our conversations and they can enjoy their play.

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As you can see from the comments above, the practicality of a separate playroom really varies from family to family. We fall into the camp of my son wanting to play all day long and wanting to be near me all day long and me not wanting to be confined to a playroom. So our family room, which opens to our kitchen, serves as the playroom. I can keep an eye on him while I get stuff done on the computer or in the kitchen. I'm not fond of seeing all the toy clutter after playtime is over so I insist that everything has a place where it belongs, preferably hidden from view in something that doesn't look like it was designed for a playroom. Dual-function furniture is really appealing to me. I read a post about a mom who bought a spacious leather storage ottoman that sounds perfect. We're planning to redo our entertainment wall to contain more hidden storage space (some cabinets and drawers). For now, we manage the clutter with several bins (faux suede bins from ClosetMaid to match the family room decor) and large baskets. By sorting the toys within the bins and baskets using Kids Klutter Katchers (mesh toy bags), we don't need as many bins/baskets (i.e. we can avoid adding one of those primary-colored plastic toy organizing bin systems). The other thing we do to keep from having our living space completely overrun with toys is rotate them out. We keep a bunch of large rubbermaid tote bins (in the closet of the room that would otherwise serve as a playroom) and every so often, we let our son trade things from the family room for things in those totes. And when the family room storage bins/baskets and the closet totes are full, my son chooses which toys gets donated.

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Some of this changes as the kids get older. My first son hung at my ankles. Then when I had a new baby in my arms he hung tighter... until he discovered that the baby wouldn't be allowed to mess with his stuff if he was in his bedroom. I only allowed younger brother in there when I was there too. But when younger brother got older, we made the bedroom up for both of them and made a playroom. At ages 3&6 I realized that they were now playing alone (ALONE!) for up to 30 minute stretches. A year later, they can play alone for an hour! They're upstairs, so the mess isn't visible, and while I can't see them, I can hear if something's up. I think the playroom is invaluable as they get older, even in a small house.

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We just started a basement renovation to add a playroom down there this last weekend. We found a much-coveted train table for 50 percent off, and after we assembled it, we realized it took up the entire floor playing area in the living room. I can't live with that.

The train table can't go in the kids' bedroom because my son would never sleep. I can't live with it in the living room. So we're finishing off a section of our basement with some construction supplies we had gathered over the last year and some things from freecycle (we got a drop-down ceiling from someone who just upgraded to a drywall ceiling). The playroom will have a half wall and be open to an office/sitting room area so there will be space for me to be down there. We built a wall down the center of the basement to separate the workshop and laundry area from the new living space so we can close the door and let my son run free.

It feels like a life-changing thing about to happen, and it adds value to our little 900 square foot house.

Cheryl
http://redpens-diapers.blogspot.com

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When we bought this house I tried to envision how we could make a room into a playroom. Then I thought we could just make a certain area of our living room into a kids' area. Then ... the toys took over.

We don't have a TV, so that is not a focus of any room of the house, andthe fact is that we never really sit and hang out in the living room, unless we are playing with the kids. You could call it our playroom, I guess. The walls are lined with bookshelves (but most of our house is) and decorated with family pictures, and while the kids' toys are over in one certain area to start the day, they get spread out. My 4 yo loves trains, and we build enormous track layouts that take up half the house!

They do have some toys - their kitchen set and a few others - in their bedroom, which they don't sleep in (most of the time they sleep with us). I sometimes wish we had just made their room into a playroom until they were both ready to sleep in it, but this works for now. Our house looks weird to most people, but it's our house, and it works for us.

And when did the whole playroom thing start? When I was a kid toys were in bedrooms or living rooms?

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