Playroom Organization (Help Me!)

I always feel like at the beginning of a new year, new season, new month...actually I think I always feel like I should reorganize something.  Anyway, I digress, at this moment I am feeling an overwhelming sense of anxiety due to the number of things that need to be done for me to feel like this beautiful new house of ours isn't just temporary.  Although this house is large enough and has it's fair share of storage space there are still many areas that are in complete and utter chaos.

The playroom...is one of those spaces.

We've put in book shelves and Ikea toy units for storage but it still seems to always be a mess.  Don't get me wrong, I am not one of those moms that can't just let their kids be kids and make a mess.  I totally can and it's not the mess so much that I mind but the location of the mess.  You see, I'm afraid that the playroom is in the totally wrong place.

In our decision making process before we moved into the house, I tried to think of where all the toys could go.  In our old house they were kept in the finished basement family room, which was perfect.  When we had guests over, we would just close the door to the basement and no one was the wiser but in our new house our basement is unfinished at this point and probably will be for a few more years.  The question became, where would be the best place to create a toy room.  At first I thought we could dress up the unfinished basement with paint on the concrete walls and foam floor in a section for the kids as it does have big windows, but I quickly realized, I wasn't keen on it from a safety standpoint and if I was going to have a playroom in the unfinished basement I would have to spend all of my time down there with them.  This was not my goal!

Then I thought all of the toys could be spread between their bedrooms upstairs and they could play up there as their rooms are a good size and there is a significant landing at the top of the stairs.  However, as I thought more about it I realized again....safety concern.  

Need I say more?

Honestly, I am not usually so over-protective, but I just couldn't shake the idea that my three year old would get mad at my four and half year old and push her through the banister.

I felt like since we don't have any formal living room furniture anyway, the best place for our play room would be in that space.  After all, I'm not trying to hide the fact that I have 2 small children.  Sounds like a great idea right?  I thought so too, until we moved in and set everything up.  Unfortunately I was wrong.

First of all, it's one of the first things you see when you walk into our house. 

Sorry folks, I know it is a bit scary...but this is real life.

Secondly, it is open to our formal dining room  which isn't a big deal, it's not like we host a lot of dinner parties these days, however sometimes it would be nice to have a "grown up" space.

Last but certainly not least, since the house is very open concept, there is really no door to speak of in which we can close off the mess.  This is the only door, doesn't really help hide much does it?

So now, I have run out of rooms...aside from locking them into a closet (I'm only kidding...don't call social services on me)!  

What is an anxiety ridden, stressed about the chaos, mom who loves her kids to do?  Any thoughts????

Until next time...Lisa