The Organizing Revolution: Week Four - Family Room!

I had it in my calendar; all ready and set to organize my son's play area. It is a small space that is between the design studio and my husband's office. We finally finished the hand-me-down shelving unit (you can see the base of it here) and it just needed a few more door handles and it is already populated with toys.

Given my recent health challenges, I decided against completing the toys this week. I'm sad but happy that I'm not exhausted, sore and regretting doing something I knew would be too much for me to handle.

Instead I decided to show the "media" area in our family room. The rest of the room is furniture and with a minimal amount of horizontal surfaces, it remains clutter free (assuming TroubleMaker picks up all his toys before bed - hence the Hot Wheels race track in these pictures).

When I met my husband, he had over 1000 records stored in his basement... He also had 500+ compact discs. In the 14 years we've been together, that number has grown dangerously close to 1000. Thankfully, he sold the records years ago, although in retrospect, I would have loved to keep some of his favourites to use as art.

None the less, I needed to devise a storage solution for all those CD's! We needed to minimize the amount of floor space used so my decision was to use vertical space and employ glass fronted units to create a lighter environment. Our family room is in our basement and is windowless (as you may be able to tell from the photos). They are all alphabetized and cataloged . It makes finding what you want a snap and having the inventory is purposeful for insurance purposes and so I can find out what my husband doesn't have when his birthday or Christmas rolls around!

As for our television and support equipment (DVD player, cable box), I wanted it up off the floor and wall mount was the only option when we (finally) upgraded to a flat panel unit.

I also wanted to create some "display" shelving to allow for a small number of the CD's to be out in the open. Being music is a huge part of our lives, I wanted to use the media wall as a focal point and centre piece to the space.




The music area was also relocated last week to accommodate our new exercise equipment. The storage bench (extra toy storage) doubles as the piano bench. The dog and cat toys have a place out in the open again in a specially decorated basket Brennan made at bible school two summers ago.

All our media is tidy, stored behind glass and works as a design feature in the space. When guests enter the room, they are always amazed and impressed by our huge music collection and the wall mounted TV! Having a storage solution that works is one of the keys to the room's organizational success! Thanks for stopping by and checking out our family room organization!