It's cute to commemorate every vacation and holiday with a new stuffed animal until your kids' floor ends up covered in them. Avoid tantrums and meltdowns over downsizing their cuddly stash with these stuffed animal storage ideas. Everyone deserves a home, including stuffed animals, and theirs can come in a multitude of shapes and sizes.
Collapsible Boxes Do the Trick
A quick way to organize your kids' stuffed animals is by buying a shelving unit that's made to fit individual cubbies. You can find canvas, plastic, and knit boxes in an array of colors. Sort stuffed animals by size, brand, or how much your kid likes them. And, once you've built the system, they'll be able to put away their stuffies on their own.
Make Use of Your Kid's In-Room Tent
One way to approach stuffed animal storage is by looking at the furniture you already have in your kids' rooms and seeing how you can convert any of it into a storage area. Decorative tents that are used for reading nooks are great because they can be zipped or buttoned up. This means the stuffed animals are in quick reach when someone wants them, but they're out of sight at the end of the day.
Turn to Under-Bed Storage
If you have the opportunity to, switching your kids' bed frames to ones with built-in under-bed storage is a game changer. Of course, if you can't change their frames, you can fill whatever space they have under there with totes or boxes. It's another place you can put your kids' stuffed animals that keeps them nearby, but out of sight.
Set Up a Few Floating Shelves
If you really want to get crafty and creative with your stuffed animal storage plans, try installing a few sets of floating shelves. You can buy pre-built floating shelves at any hardware store (or online), and all they take is some measuring and a few screws. Play around with their placement throughout the room, and get your kids involved in how they display their stuffies. This DIY plan works best when they've got a smaller collection of cuddle buddies.
Make the Most of Storage You Already Have
An idea that might've never crossed your mind is to use storage you've already got. Sort out the stuffed animals your kids absolutely won't part with, and put the ones that aren't currently in rotation in luggage, beach bags, and totes around the house. It'll make your life easier if you label and organize them by brand or type beforehand, because your kids will inevitably ask you where a specific one is…after dumping out every bag first.
Put Thrifting to Good Use With an Antique Trunk
If you've got a flair for thrifting and a taste for the past, you can store your kids stuffed animals in old steamer trunks. Set these at the foot of their beds and give them the old-school experience. Once they've aged out of their stuffed animal phase, they can take these trunks with them for many years to come.
Give the Stuffed Animals Their Own Bookshelf
Whoever said bookshelves are only meant to hold books? Tall, wide bookshelves are stylish dupes for your standard storage bins because they store just as many stuffed animals on their shelves and serve as their own statement piece. Keep your kids' rooms stylish and functional by converting a bookshelf into a stuffed animal hotel.
Order a Custom Toy Hammock
Toy hammocks have come a long way since the tacked-up netting above corner beds that were popular in the 2000s. Today, you can custom order different sizes and styles to match your little one's personality. Screw the hammocks into the wall, and you have funky purposeful storage for every stuffed animal in the collection.
Go Old-School With a Toy Chest
Kids don't have toy chests like they used to. These big, wooden boxes where all your playthings were kept have given way to rainbow-colored plastic totes and collapsible boxes. Take it back to your childhood days by thrifting or ordering a designated toy box for your kids' stuffed animals to stay in.
It also works to keep your kids from accumulating too many stuffed animals. You can make a rule that once the bin is full, they can't get any more until you want to part with some of your old ones.
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Give Them a Seat at the Table
A quirky idea for kids that have smaller collections is to buy or build each stuffed animal a custom chair to sit in. This can also work in tandem with other storage ideas. Leave the chairs for the current favorites, and the bins or boxes for the presently retired ones.
Create Custom Stuffed Animal Storage Beds
A super cute craft to get your kids in on the action is working with them to build custom storage beds. In reality, these are just boxes with stapled or glued fabric in the bottom that store a bunch of stuffed animals. But just like with Santa Claus, the magic is in the believing. So, buy some scrap fabric, grab a bunch of recycled boxes, and let your kid go wild.
Stuffed Animal Storage Doesn't Have to Be Boring
Storage isn't glamorous, but it doesn't have to be boring. Whether you're putting up a few floating shelves or looking for the perfect steamer trunk to thrift, there are so many ways you can bring style and flair to your stuffed animal storage. Best part is these storage systems work for so much more than just stuffed animals, so no matter what kind of kid you've got, you've got a way to keep their room clean and their hobbies satisfied.
