Multifunctional Furnishings

After we had our second baby, I had dreams of giving the girls a room where all of their toys would stay. A room that if we didn’t feel like straightening up, we could simply close the door; out of sight out of mind. But reality set in and I knew it would be a while before we could let them play on their own without fear of choking hazards and other shenanigans. That and the fact that they didn’t want to be too far away from us seeing as they were so young and all. What that meant was we needed to figure out a way to have toys in our main living space without the house looking like a daycare. Not that there’s anything wrong with having toys out and about.  I mean it’s not that we were trying to hide the fact that we had children, but our house at the time was not the biggest so a couple toys scattered around and it went from living space to obstacle course.

We put our thinking caps on and decided that our furniture needed to be able to serve multiple purposes. Not only to be aesthetically pleasing, but also be able to handle our toy storage needs. Even though we had a sectional sofa, we could always use additional seating so we used a storage bench similar to this:

To this day the storage bench holds toys and provides additional seating.

Even as the kids have gotten older and their toys found their way into that dream playroom I spoke of earlier, we still utilize the storage now for things like blankets, magazines and movies.

While we left our little first house a long time ago, we still keep the same ideals of multifunctional. Furniture is expensive and if you can use it for more than one purpose, you’ll really get longevity out of the piece and keep things organized.  Don’t be afraid to use furniture for other purposes. My mom gave me her dresser she had growing up when I went away to college. That piece has been well loved and has survived more moves than I can count. It has served as a dresser, but now it’s the sideboard in my dining room. The only thing I did was switch out the drawer pulls. Inside I store table cloths, candles, games, crafts for the kids, gift bags and tissue paper.  I have found a few local thrift stores that I love to peruse for gems just like this to give a second, or even a third, life to.

Moving to South Carolina also meant that we would have visitors, but we also didn’t want to have a designated guest room. The fourth bedroom doesn’t have a closet and has been designated the playroom/guest room/ office. Keeping with multifunctional, we selected a queen sleeper sofa to serve as seating and a bed. La-Z-Boy also has twin sleeper chair and a half, with many fabric choices, if you’re looking for something a little smaller or need additional sleeping space. This could also be great for a nursery for those long nights, or children’s room for little guests.

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