When David and I chose our current house last summer for our forever house we knew that it would undergo many forms in its lifetime.
In the lifetime of our family.
As we grow.
As we change.
We knew straightaway that for the first years of it’s life.
The largest room in the house would be a playroom.
A room for play for our three beautiful children.
We are very lucky in that our large playroom opens up into our lovely garden where we have lots more space to play.
Though we did not know it in July when we moved in.
We would have only one perfect summer with our three children and that playroom.
Now it has to be something else.
A playroom still but also a place of memory.
The place where we can remember
The baby girl that we love so much.
That we got to know in that room.
Our playroom.
But though Tilda spent a lot of time in the room, obviously,
It has really always been a toddlers playroom.
Why don’t you come on inside and see?
Our Playroom
Our playroom is the largest room in our house and one of the things that I love the most is that in periods of bad weather, like we have had lately, there is plenty of space for biking and scooting inside.
Biking and Scooting
I also love that you can see the day through the large windows at either end. We have breakfast in the playroom and we always talk about the weather of the day.
I like to think that our playroom is quite well organised. What is desperately needs is labels showing what goes where. This is on my very long to do list! But for now I just make sure that I know where everything belongs and to be honest Esther and William are now quite well trained.
As you walk into our playroom you will stand beside The Zoo and opposite The Car, both of which are Daddy’s creations. One providing a fun form of storage and the other hours of imaginary play.
Daddy’s Creations
As you look around the playroom you will notice that the walls are adorned with stunning jungle character paintings by Daddy, Thomas posters and toddler artwork.
We do not do as much artwork as we should but that is going to change as we have everything you could ever possibly need to create a toddler masterpiece!
I love my art cupboard, it reminds me of my classroom cupboard when I was teaching.
Much of my playroom takes inspiration from a classroom.
There are lots of opportunities for real life role play, for example.
Real Life Role Play Big and Small
Esther and William love acting out stories with their Happyland sets. They also love pretend shopping for food, stocking their kitchen and cooking each other tea. They both enjoy acting like Daddy with their work bench. Daddy often used the playroom as a workshop so they have lots of opportunity to watch him work and copy what he does.
All our smaller toys are stored in plastic drawer units. Each unit has certain linked toys inside.
For example in one unit are all plastic vehicles, sorted by size in three drawers.
Planes, Trains and Automobiles
Next to the plastic vehicles I keep people, animals, wooden vehicles and also all our wooden blocks and threading toys.
People and More
In the same row of drawers I also keep musical instruments, electronic toys including toddler laptops and miscellaneous toys which includes kaleidoscopes, spinning tops, tea sets, ribbons, bean bags and other oddments that do not really fit anywhere else.
We have also have a unit of building and stacking toys where we keep the Play Mobile 123, Duplo, Mega Bloks and our beautiful wooden stackers.
Building and Stacking
Next to this unit we have drawers of puppets and puzzles such as dominoes and wooden dress up dolls. We also keep an every growing array of flashcards in these drawers that Esther and William love looking through.
Puppets and Puzzles
There is one other set of drawers in which I keep playdough, colouring books, writing paper and extra craft materials to restock the art cupboard.
We have a lot off drawers!!
On the tops of the drawers I try to rotate what is on display. At the moment we have electric keyboards out and shape sorters including a cake stand one which is great for learning numbers! Esther and William mostly use it as a platform from which their trains can fall into the mine!!
Shapes, Trains and Buses
Speaking of trains!! The big green box above houses our ever growing collection of engines, carriages, accessories and track. We have enough track to cover most of the floor in our playroom. Esther and William in particular are just starting to love the challenge of putting together new track designs and fixing broken tracks. They are both budding railway engineers!
Engineers in the Making!
Esther and William also LOVE books and we have books everywhere in our house. All around the playroom are different boxes of books to share.
Boxes of Books
We also have a red bucket in the playroom which is sometimes a dressing up bucket full of clothes and accessories but is often turned into a sensory bin. The last one was Valentine’s Day and I am about to create a spring one.
Sensory Dress Up
I find that having something that changes regularly in the room is really good for Esther and William. Even something as simple as putting a new picture on the wall or putting some of the animals in places they should not be.
We have tried to make the playroom a family room so there is a beanbag for sitting on, a table to sit at for meals, snacks and to do art work. There is also a sofa for snuggles. Esther and William love it if you sit and watch them play or scoot around the room.
Puzzles and Games
But what they love the most is when you get down on to the floor and play with them. At the moment they love puzzles and simple games so we are doing these alot. I keep these up high so that they can only be accessed with an adult. This works for us as it means we get out one puzzle at a time and keep all the bits together so that we know we can play with it again another time. Esther and William are good at packing away puzzles and games now but it has taken lots of training and supervision.
I am very proud of our playroom. It really is a lovely place to be.
But though I always expected to lose this
I did not ever think that we would lose this
Little Miss Matilda Mae
We miss you Baby Tilda x
Matilda Mae
We miss you Matilda Mae x
Firstly, what an awesome playroom. I am so jealous!! I recognise a few toys there and yes, it looks like a classroom. I love it! secondly, I am so so sorry that you didn’t get to spend many years playing with tilda in this room. Its so unfair.
xxxx
That is a truly wonderful room. I hope that the sweet memories overwhelm the sadness and that you can remember Tilda there every day as you play together – you’ve created a wonderful space for your family to play.
Oh wow, what a wonderful space for your children – I love it! I also love the photo of Matilda Mae with her fluffy baby bird hair. She is beautiful.
Oh Jennie, Your home is beautiful – the garden, the playroom – you have done so much for your children to make their space such an amazing place to be. I know for sure if my kids walked into that room, they’d be wide eyed and have so much fun. Matilda looks so happy playing in the playroom. The short time she was with you, with so much you gave her, it’s no wonder she always smiled xx
What a wonderful room no doubt full of happy memories. You have inspired me to make more of our playroom rotating the toys is a simple but great idea, my 2 year old loves roll play and dressing up at the moment. I hope in time you find some comfort spending time in the room Tilda was clearly so happy! X
I am in awe of the organisation! We also have a playroom running onto a big garden, I recognise quite a few of the toys here, and I have very similar storage boxes – but mine are an absolute jumble of anything thrown in anywhere and dotted all over the house! Am once again in utter admiration of your skills as a mum. I am still so dreadfully sorry that Matilda won’t get to grow up in this room, but it’s a great place for you all to remember her being there with you x
Still so desperately sorry for you. What a lucky little girl Tilda was. I hope that this very special room in your forever house sees years of love and laughter. I too have a train fanatic and we have much of the same wooden kit with lots of engines. Hank is a current favourite and we are keeping our eye out for a proper Cranky 🙂 xx
Beautiful post Jennie… Xx
What an amazing playroom. Your blog and the links to other websites have given me such inspiration for my two boys. I bet Matilda had hours of fun in this lovely space. You must miss her in a way I could never imagine x
I’m so envious of how organised you are! We were turning our big front room into a playroom before we had to move, ideally it would have looked something like this. So good too that it opens up into your beautiful garden. So tragic of course that Matilda Mae won’t be there to enjoy it with the twins x
Thank you for taking time to share your fantastic system for organising the playroom. We especially love the zoo and the car.
With such a children’s paradise and loving, dedicated parents like you, it is little wonder Esther and William are always smiling, as was Tilda. She was so lucky to have been born into your family! May you continue to make lots of happy memories and fill this room and the rest of the house with giggles and squeals of joy, honouring the times you shared with your gorgeous Baby Tiger here too.
Have been following your tweets and blogs as you and others link them to twitter.
I as a degree level childcare student am amazed at the beauty, order and organisation
Of your playroom, the room that has and will encapsulate so many memories and
facilitate so much learning. To have enabled your children to return to a new sense of
Normal whilst I can only imagine the struggles and pain. To be able to face a room of
Such memories and keep it a place of order and fun must have taken so much strength
And pain on the part of yourself and husband. Your strength of mind, your willpower
and your character for sharing such an experience with strangers, with the whole world
Shows how strong you are. Be strong for those who lean on yo when all is too much
and ‘we’ the people you have touched will do what we can to support you. Xxx
That play room is every child’s dream. Tilda will have had some lovely times watching her big brother and sister in there.
jennie what a fantastic room for your children you have inspired me jennie with some of the things you have for your children thank you , oh what a lovely time tilda must have had in there. your children are blessed to have you as a mummy you can see from there smiles xxx
Wow, what an amazing playroom! It is making me feel a bit inadequate! It’s only natural that every post results in you thinking about Tilda. I am glad that you have lots of happy shared memories of you all in your playroom though. Lots of love xx
Wow, wow, WOW! That playroom is amazing. I’d so love something like this – we really need to move house! It’s so lovely to see the pictures of what you and David have created. A perfect playroom and features. You really do make a great team. You also created 3 beautiful children together and whilst Matilda is no longer physically here she will always be a part of you all and a part of the playroom. Sending you more hugs xx
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I LOVE the picture of Matilda in the bumboo chair (is that what it’s called?)…She looks like she is so wise and was trying to tell you something really important and profound. I have no doubt she was a really clever girl. I know it’s hard, but I think one day you’ll be so glad of all these things triggering memories of her… she will never be forgotten!! xx
Awesome Playroom! You and David make such a great team. x
What an amazing room I want to play in it myself, I hope it’s filled with happy memories
Jennie, Your children are so lucky to have you. They have so much to do and play with. It makes me feel bad as I’m always working & hardly have time to do all the fun things that you guys get up to. I’ll admit I’m very tempted by messy play, but also scared of all the mess – I’ll definitely be taking miss p outside when the sun cheers up & she can make all the mess she likes out there 🙂 You would be a really awesome childminder! xx
I love your playroom and I was waiting for this post thinking it would inspire me to sort mine out properly. And it has, though not quite in the way I thought. Actually it has made me realise that the system I have set up, which is very similar to yours, is quite workable, and I just need to be better at keeping it under control and making sure everything is returned to the right place. I have started to label my storage crates but they are only about half done, so I really need to make it a priority to finish the job. Thank you for writing this post, it is so encouraging, and it will really help me to get on with it. I am glad Esther and William have such a lovely place to play, and I am just so so sorry that baby Tilda isn’t with you to enjoy it. It’s just not fair. xx
Your playroom is gorgeous. It looks so well set up and looks like the kids have plenty of places to play and have fun.
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