Ikea Inspired Playroom

We moved into our new house a little over a month ago and one of the first things on the agenda was to set up a playroom on the main floor to hopefully contain some of the toys.  To keep the remodeling budget reasonable we took the 2 hour drive to Ikea to pick up a few essentials.

Here is the room before we bought the house:

1. The room started out as this nasty salmon color and we (or rather my DH and FIL) painted the room a light taupe color to brighten the room.  They also had to change out all the outlets since the previous owners decided the outlets themselves would look nice in a salmon color.

2. We had intended to buy a kids craft table for the holidays but I just couldn't find the right one.  Then while surfing Target's website I happened upon a clearance table for $40 (down from $159.99) with free S/H when you spent $50 (like that was hard to do).  The box came in damaged and my DH had to repair it a little but hey, for $40 I am not complaining.

3.  Our big purchase was the Expedit shelving unit.  We decided to go with the 25 cubbie hole model and we purchased 10 matching bins for $4.99 each and fit perfectly.   The rest of the shelves we left open to display books, puzzles, etc.  I put all the art supplies on the top shelf and left the bottom 3 shelves fully stocked with toys that are played with everyday (like the puzzles).  I try to pull out a bin every couple of days since my toddler doesn't really go looking for things in there yet.  Its a way to keep toys fresh.  Oh and for those with kids that climb, this unit comes with hardware to attach to the wall.

4. Ikea hacks!
    a. Stools - we found these cute little stools at Ikea for $5.99 but they were just a little too tall and my son had a little trouble getting up on them.  So my DH took them downstairs and cut 2 inches off the legs of the stool.  Now they fit perfect with the table and my son can hop right on them.  They are surprisingly alot more stable then I thought they were going to be.
   b. Art display - Since my son has been attending a little class at the Y, he is producing lots of artwork and we needed somewhere to display it.  So we bought at curtain wire with little hooks and viola!

5.  When we moved into the house there was sadly no room for our precious white board, which keeps us all organized (don't worry we bought a new one that is slightly smaller).   But we didn't want to see this white board go to waste so we hung it in the playroom and now my son has a place to play with his letter.  FYI - white board cleaner takes off permanent marker, pen, and crayon.

6. We also bought these two little Lack side tables so that my son would have a place to play with his new Ikea train set and his legos.

Eventually I would like to add some carpet tiles under the craft table so the carpet doesn't get stained with paint/markers.  I would also like to add some touches of red to get some more color into the room.