Book Case with a Purpose

I call it a necessity. I am always moving my via boxes around to be used for different things. Here, I wanted to create a small partition. I removed all of the colorful fronts and doors that were once on the storage cubes. I used several different inserts to help organize stuff that we need to get to a lot. The small pales on the side hang on attachable pegs and house crayons and colored pencils. The big red cylinder used to be a fancy leather wine bottle holder, but now it keeps some of the best artwork done in the house.

The back of the unit is finished nicely with solid panels, and the girls have already discovered how to get to anything sitting on top. Putting the big pot of leftover Halloween candy up there was not one of my brightest moves. I may take it a bit higher and add another row of boxes.

Create Space in the Kids' Room

My wife and I thought about the girls' room for quite awhile. Our idea was to design a playroom with functional bedroom furniture and loaded with plenty of storage solutions. There were some challenges, the main one being that the space is only 13 feet by 10 feet. Since our apartment is cozy, around 1200 sf, the four of us need all the usable space we can get. So, the more space we could make for the kids, the more space, potentially, kind of, we could have for the grown ups. This was a pretty selfish project on my part.

We considered bunk beds. That sounded like a good way to create a bit more space in the room. But who would get the top bunk? Is it usually the younger one? I think Bobby slept on the top bunk above Peter in The Brady Bunch. I also remember Arnold, in Different Strokes, climbing up to the top of that cool perpendicular bed that he shared with Willis. But does that make sense? Why wouldn't we want to play it safe and put the youngest below? But then we realized they'd probably both want to be on top so we came up with two loft beds, instead.

Raising both beds up allowed us more living space below. We created two separate spaces so the girls would each have their own corner of the world to play and learn. We chose their favorite colors for the wall below so that area would be more unique. That also gave us the ability to go in two different directions with the decor. The rolling toy storage bench in the middle makes a meeting place for tea parties and active imaginations. It's also good for mom or dad to stand on when checking on the little guys. The modular toy boxes, from viatoybox.com, make great big steps up to the top, too.

A Quick Lesson in Measurements

As an apprentice on the job, one of the first things you learn is how to read a tape measure. For me, it was a bit easier to make a song out of it. I still remember the musical cadence I put with the fractions while singing it out loud over and over. And believe me, you are fortunate not to hear my pitch. The lyrics go like this,

One sixteenth, one eighth, three sixteenths, one quarter,

Five sixteenths, three eighths, seven sixteenths, one half.

Nine sixteenths, five eighths, eleven sixteenths, three quarters,

Thirteen sixteenths, Seven eighths, fifteen sixteenths, ONE!

For basic carpentry, we typically measure and cut everything in increments of a sixteenth inch. When cutting sheetrock or drywall, eighth of an inch increments are just fine.

Please send home improvement questions to John, the resident carpenter, and creator of Via Toy Box. He will answer each question via email and post one question and answer every week.

Small Closets via Boxes

We don't have much space in our main clothes closet so we had to be a little creative. The via boxes are perfectly sized for folded sweaters and pants. We started with the tower in the corner and rotated the front of the boxes so we could attach shelving and rods along each wall.

What can I say, we have more via boxes than closet space. They work really well for organizing the girls' clothes and tons of other stuff.

Really Cool Basement in Naperville, Illinois

 

Thank you, Julie for sending in pics of your super fun playroom. What kid wouldn't want to spend all day there dressing up, making artwork, and hanging out? It is a well thought out layout and the via toy boxes are used nicely to divide the space.