Toy Story

Have I mentioned before my desire to find a toy cupboard of some sort for DC's room? Those of you with children/grandchildren will no dount appreciate the need for toys (especially those made of huge chunks of plastic) to be corraled somewhere/somehow (preferably out of sight...) in order to maintain some level of sanity and tidiness. In my head I had a picture of the piece of furniture that would do the job - so high, so deep, so wide, to fit the space where the bookcase currently resides, and not too ugly, if at all possible.

The photo below shows the bookcase which I was looking to replace (although since the photo was taken the wardrobe and bookcase have swapped places)

And here are a couple of old snaps of DC's room (while cardboard at the window was all the rage in fashionalbe abodes...) to show just how many toys were dotted about the place.



This bookcase (apologies for dreadful photo, it was just a quick 'reminder' snap that I took)from John Lewis made it on to my 'to be considered' list since it wasn't too hideous or too expensive (£99, so not exactly cheap, but not too bad if push came to shove), but that was if nothing from the 'vintage/antique/junk' era could be found before we drowned under a sea of garishly-coloured plastic toys, cute and cuddly critters, and hundreds of books. But still the hunt for 'THE' toy cupboard continued. Until Tuesday night.

Our nearest auction house, Lawrences, holds a general sale every Wednesday with viewings until 7pm on Tuesdays. Hubby suggested I go to the viewing on Tuesday night since in all the 9 months we've been living down here, I'd not been along, and auctions used to be a really big thing for me. So, with some grumbling, because it was 6pm and I didn't really want to go out, I trundled off. Well, what luck I did because there in the auction room was a cupboard that, if I won it, was just perfect. So I left a commission bid and kept my fingers crossed that £65 would be enough to secure the little beauty. I was away for the day of the auction but hubby called up to see whether I'd won anything (I'd left bids on three other items) and it seems lady luck was smiling on me since the lovely cupboard was mine for £10 less than my maximum bid (although it came in at about £67 once the fees were added). And here she is, in all her glory (no idea why the cupboard has become female).Snuggled next to her big brother, the wardrobeAnd, doing what she does best, providing a happy home for toys and books.Do you like our little reading nook? DC's not content to sit on our laps for bedtime stories any more, he prefers to sit in his own chair and read stories to us - cute! And the chair he sits in used to be mine when I was little.Unfortunately the toy cupboard wasn't big enough to hold the large collection of cuddly toys that DC has amassed, so they now live in a big canvas bag at the foot of his cot.Quite a transformation, don't you think? The room is so much tidoer, and feels so much bigger. It also means DC can see his toys and get hold of them more easily too. Big thumbs up for storage cupboards (and auctions.)