We Try IKEA Kids Storage With The IKEA Lustigt And IKEA Flisat Book Display Hacks

Ad – Are you desperately searching for kid’s room storage hacks? We’ve been tidying up the toys with IKEA (including the IKEA FLISAT dollhouse and the IKEA LUSTIGT shelves). This post is a paid partnership with IKEA and Mumsnet

IKEA Kids Storage Hacks With IKEA FLISAT And IKEA LUSTIGT

Firstly, how do children acquire so much STUFF? It starts off with a few tasteful newborn toys, and before you know it there’s a tidal wave of Babies, toys, books, and millions of little plastic things (where do they come from?).

It’s easy to be overwhelmed by it all, so as well as regular charity-shop clear-outs for all the things they’re too old for or really don’t play with, we try and use storage wisely so we have space and harmony around the house.

We are big fans of IKEA due to the affordability, quality and creativity of the products, and have lots around our house, from the childrens beds to our IKEA spice rack bookshelves and the IKEA SKADIS pinboard from our post on back-to-school hacks.

This time we’ve been tidying up Flo’s room with our kid’s storage hacks using products from the IKEA FLISAT and IKEA LUSTIGT range.

Time To Tidy Up: Kids Storage Hacks With IKEA:

Flo has the smallest bedroom in the house – we live in a fairly typical Victorian terrace, and while this room would initially have been quite big, it’s been carved up to give space to a bathroom landing and also our loft extension stairs. As a result it’s thin and narrow. And full to the brim of all her things.

So here are the storage hacks we’ve used alongside our IKEA products:

1) Make sure storage is playful as well as practical 
Yes, children have a lot of things, so good storage is essential – but it doesn’t have to be boring, and when it comes to children’s rooms that are on the small side it helps if it’s fun as well as useful. I think this makes children more likely to use it, both to play with and also to *whispers* tidy up by themselves.

One of the main play areas in Flo’s room is her white toy unit which has a wide surface at child level, meaning it’s easy to become a magnet for mess. We wanted to tidy it up with better storage but still keep it fun, with scope for her to carry on playing, too.

Step forward the IKEA FLISAT dollhouse (here, £25), a shelf shaped like a dollhouse or a dollhouse you can use as a shelf – clever, right? You can use it in a multitude of ways, from an actual dollhouse to a book shelf or a display unit. It can be used stand-alone or mounted on the wall (it’s heavy, so make sure it’s securely attached to the wall if you have young children).

To fully furnish the house, IKEA also make a range of HUSET dollhouse furniture (here, £12) which includes mini versions of the normal furniture range. You might recognise the bookcase and the rug…

2) Chose multi-use storage for children’s rooms
One of the great things about the IKEA FLISAT dollhouse is that as well as being able to use it in a variety of ways, it also grows with your child – when they no longer want a dollhouse, you can use it to store books or display other items.

What we also love is that it’s a blank canvas for personalising, and you can also change this as the children change – we added wrapping ‘wallpaper’, postcards, washi tape and IKEA stickers to decorate it, but if you look on my IKEA ideas Pinterest board there are loads of examples of creative things people have done, and I think it would look great painted, too.

We also have the IKEA ANGELAGEN children’s storage boxes (here, £8 for the three) which sit neatly on the shelf of the unit. These which are both colourful and great for sweeping lots of stuff into, but at the moment are currently also being used as a Barbie house (the children pull these out and stack them up to make a block of flats).

While on my hunt for storage items I also bought the IKEA RISATORP basket (here, £10), for the kitchen, can I add, but the children quickly nabbed it to store and carry around toys.

3) Store items by displaying them, not hiding them away
Ah, the millions of pieces of little things children have! From Shopkins to LOL and Lego, plus all the playfood…I swear this stuff grows overnight? So I loved the idea of the IKEA LUSTIGT shelves (here, £5 each), as a kids storage hack, as they tidy up all these small toys but mean you can actually store them on display, so they’re tidy, pretty and also in easy reach for playing with.

These shelves are only £5 and you can adjust the width of the arms as you see fit (each vertical piece of wood has multiple holes in).

They also come with tiny plastic ladders that add to the fun.

4) My final kids storage hack? Investing in playful storage might make them more likely to tidy up… 
The dream! At school they play the ‘Tidy up Rhumba’ song when it’s tidy-up, so I’m going to put it on at home and hope for the best. After all, with storage this fun they’re going to want to, right Mr Robot?

This post on kids storage hacks is a paid partnership with IKEA and Mumsnet

Read our IKEA Malm drawers makeover.