Toy Storage / Tool Storage Or Both

Play is a child’s work and toys are the tools children need to make sense of their world. If you look at your child’s toys as the tools she needs to work out how things work, things might start making more sense. But no child needs as many toys as most kids have today. Children don’t really want ‘toys’ at all. They want real things, useful things. A push popper isn’t a ‘toy’. To the child with imagination it’s a real vacuum cleaner or a real lawnmower. If a child has too many toys he may become overwhelmed and not really play with them at all. And the simpler the toy, the more options the child has for injecting imagination, and the more creative the play can be.

But this is about tool storage, for both children and adults. For a child, scale is the most important consideration. Toy storage must be reachable for the child. (And the child must be required to keep its toys in reasonable order—less hassle for everyone.) Small things can be kept in the reachable sections of an over-the-door shoe holder. Little stackable tubs or plastic baskets can be used to sort by type of item, too. Or put them on reachable shelves so they don’t have to un-stack to get what they want. Of course, you’ll have a one-bin-at-a-time rule.

The traditional concept of a toy box is cute, but may not be too practical if everything gets jumbled together. Perhaps you could use it to store extra bedding or growing-into clothing.

The closet needs to be child-accessible, too. There are lots of closet insert kits either designed specifically for kids or versatile enough so you can design a custom closet interior. The portions your child can’t reach could hold your own out-of-season items.

Grownup Toys (aka tools)
Tools belong: in a toolbox. However, that toolbox can be configured any way that works for you. Maybe you keep your tools in a kitchen drawer. That’s perfectly fine if all you need is a hammer or a screwdriver once in a while. But if you’re going to get more serious about taking care of your home, you probably will need a few more things eventually. You need a toilet plunger and a drain plunger. You need something to get hair out of the drains (a piece of clothes hanger wire with a little hook on it, perhaps.) You will need at least a small pair of pliers or vise-grips to make the hook in the wire. A small electric (plug-in) drill, and drill and screwdriver bits, come in amazingly handy. And so it goes, one thing leads to another. Acquire tools as you need them and increase the sophistication of your tool storage as you increase your collection (and your knowledge). You may never need more than a simple toolbox that you carry around from task to task, or you may require a full work bench complete with vise, and pegboard with the tools carefully outlined in marker so they always go back to the right place. But you do need a consistent place to keep the things you work with.

If you have small children or curious pets keep all chemicals and solvents locked up. Keep all sharp or otherwise dangerous tools out of sight and temptation. Make sure all your garden tools are stored safely, too. Lots of handled-tool racks are available for storing rakes, etc. upright. Or you can hang them against the garage/shed wall. Don’t leave them lying around. It’s not good for the tools and it’s not good for the person who just tripped over them. Roll the hose up after you hose off the tools.

There are a zillion ways to store all the pesky little nuts, bolts, nails, fasteners, and whatevers that you will acquire. Some people screw baby-food jar lids onto the undersides of shelves and keep the little doohickies visible in the jars that screw into the lids. Or there are plastic divider boxes, tackle boxes, train cases, old spice bottles etc. Use your imagination.

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