We keep the majority of the toys in the play area, which is part of our living room. We don't want our daughter to be sequestered while she plays; we want her to be near us and feel like it is her house too.

Our kids have toys in their room. Each of their rooms have a little reading nook in them. In our living room, which is long and rectangular, divided by the couch, the front half is for the parent's enjoyment (although the area rug is often a stage for dancing and dramas) the back half is for toys. Living room toys are toys that folks play with together and mostly involve co-operative play (blocks, train track, cars, those little animals, little dolls to fill the things made with the blocks). This part of the living room opens to our dining area so when mom's visit we can sit and have coffee and watch the kiddos. Many toys are toted back and forth between the living rooms and bedrooms too. But, we try to have a clean-up time at night to get them put in their places. I also have an "art area" in my kitchen where the kids can get messy.

Most of my son's books are in his room, along with a train table, and his ikea play tent (which I've discovered makes fabulous stuffed animal storage!!) and tunnel - his other toys (cars, blocks, etc) are in the living room, and his play food is mostly in the kitchen (with the play kitchen). The one room I really try to keep toy-free is my bedroom, which isn't always successful (but I move the toys back at the end of the day).

I have baskets in the living room and family room for toys, and we have a playroom on the main level. I try to keep the toys in the playroom but use the baskets to catch what roams-- and a lot roams with three boys-- and when I clean I take the baskets back to the playroom, sort their contents and return them empty to their places. Their are two rooms where toys are not allowed: the master bedroom (a cute thing to call the place where we all sleep) and the kitchen (which is smallish and so poorly designed that one stray matchbox car could be the end of us).

We do a combination of toys in bedrooms and playroom. Although, far too many toys tend to make their way into mom and dad's room. In general, we try to keep more mellow toys in the bedroom like a dollhouse, table for drawing, and the books live in the bedrooms, as well. The playroom holds the toys they go wild with, and toys that we don't want the dog to eat (no dogs allowed in the playroom).

We do toys in both, although the great great majority our in our living room since that is where we spend most of our time on the first floor.

We have a bedroom, dormitory style for our kids with very few toys... a couple of books, a couple of softies and everyone's special treasure box. Otherwise our kids have a huge room where we keep all the books and toys, nothing wanders!!! The rest of the house is pretty toy free... a couple of rotating toys under the sink and a few cooking toys in the corner of the kitchen. I think that while it is everyone's home we have specific functions for specific rooms and not every room is a toy room!!!

We are lucky enough to have a five bedroom house (and only two children). We need a guest room since we live in San Diego and have lots of visitors. We also need an office for my husband so he can work from home. In our last house--also five bedrooms--the office and guest room took up the two extra bedrooms. As a result, most of the kids' toys were in the family room, which drove me NUTS. (They also have toys in their bedrooms but, well, they have a lot of toys...) In this house we combined the guest room and office and made the biggest (non-master) bedroom a playroom. Best thing I ever did!!

We have only books and 'bubba' (my old cabbage patch kid) in the bedroom. All other toys are in a play room (converted dining room)

We have a play area in the living room. Our house is a small two-story, with just the bedrooms and bath upstairs. Most of the time we spend in the house is downstairs, so a downstairs play space made the most sense.

Toys downstairs in family room and play room, not in the living room, but of course toys travel. We don't keep toys in the bedroom yet.

The kids have toys and books in their rooms, stored in underbed totes: Legos & games or drawer systems in their closets: Polly Pockets, dolls, doll clothes, costumes. These are the high-use toys (the ones they play with daily).
The rest of the toys are in the basement which is set up as a playroom. That area houses their Haba tent, Ikea spin chair, kitchen playset, a Geotrax train set, and bookcases storing puzzles, games & toys. The other half of the basement is set up as a craft area. Lots & lots of art supplies in cupboards and a big table from an old school that is absolutely covered in paint & glitter!
No toys in the living room. The only "toys" in the kitchen are markers/crayons/colored pencils/paper stored in the bottom of the china cupboard b/c those are high-use art supplies.
Occasionally, toys from the basement migrate upstairs to be played with. The basement is more or less my system of rotating toys yet they're all in plain sight.

Thanks to the Home Cure, I decided that the best use of a dead zone in my house would be a play area for my one year old. It's a strategic move -- I can see him from the kitchen and the dining room. Nice to have a space out in the open where we don't have to yell NO, STOP, OH LORD DON'T TOUCH THAT! (like we do in the kitchen and our bedroom).Plus, like beasmom, I want him to feel like this is his house too.

We actually just moved all of our kid's toys out of their rooms last week. My almost 3 year old was getting up at 3am to play with the toys in his room so we needed to do something. Both kids have all of their books in their rooms but no more toys. Now my living room looks like a preschool classroom but I kind of dig it.

We have been lucky enough to have playrooms in each of our homes and it really is so helpful. The playroom in our current home (a Cape style home) is next to the living room and is on the main level, so all the toys stay in there. There are built-in shelves throughout the entire room so it looks neat too. There are no toys in the bedrooms upstairs. I do feel as though we take A LOT more hand-me-down toys from others since we have a place to put them all. I don't think our son (and baby on the way!) would have as many toys if there was no designated room. I love decorating the playroom for Christmas too, you can do pretty much anything in there since it's really not an official room where guests go. And there is a door we can always close!!

We keep almost all of our kids toys in the living room. I'd rather have them mostly in their rooms, or in the play room, but the play room is upstairs on the third level of the house, and since the kids are too little to play unsupervised for very long, we're almost never up there.

I tried settting up my almost two year old's room with all her favorite toys and books, and proceeded in congratulating myself on such aesthetic prowess and creativity. Three minutes after i let my daughter back into her room to admire and quietly play with one toy at a time, i came back after checking on the baby to find the place completely ransacked. Ah, two-year-olds. At least she loved it. :) We now keep a FEW books, her stuffed animals, her doll and doll bed, and usually rotate one other toy in her room (right now it's her jewelry box). Otherwise, I have found, that she dumps out everything and then doesn't want to play with any of it. When the house is a wreck, she is miserable. The more organized and orderly everything is, the happier and more creative and productive she is. And the more supervision she has at this point in time, the more of my sanity is preserved, so when i look at it that way, its definitely a win-win for toys in the living room. :)

We live in a small two-storey house (bedrooms and bath upstairs). My son is only 1.5, so he doesn't have very many toys yet. We keep a small bin of toys and a bin of books downstairs in the living room, and a few more books upstairs in his (tiny) room. We are in the process of finishing our basement, and our plan is to treat that as more of a playroom as our son gets older (for bigger toys). The bedrooms are really too small for much toy storage, plus I prefer the rooms to be as calm and clutter-free as possible to promote sleep.

Most of our daughter's toys are in her bedroom (she is almost 3). Because her room is on the second floor we have kids books in our living room and a shelf of toys for her to play with while I am cooking etc and can't be upstairs with her. We change out the toys in the living room frequently to keep her interested. In our next home I hope to have a main floor playroom/art room/office that will be the hub of the house!

We converted a formal dining area to a playroom. Who hosts formal dinners anymore anyway? And if you did before, you don't once you have two little kids! :)

We truly live in a tiny space. About 900 ft. and no bedrooms. We have one open loft space upstairs. One half houses his clothes, rocker, stuffed animal basket, bookcase with paper books and small closet for him. The other side is our bed and his crib. So we are forced to keep most of his toys and board books downstairs in the living room. We tuck the toys away on the bottom two shelves of a bookcase. The books are lined on the sideboard and he can access them any time. It's a tight squeeze, but he's only 1.5 and we are hopefully moving to a larger place soon. We are also a repository of handed-down toys and we have a tiny space so who knows? I figure I could open a daycare or library someday with all of this stuff!

we also use our dining room as a playroom, which is off of the open plan kitchen/family room, so it is great to be able to see our little one playing while cooking or hanging out on the couch. we don't really have any toys in the bedrooms upstairs and spend very little time up there besides sleeping, bathing, & dressing.

our kitchen/living room/dining room area is large, and is on the 2nd floor. our bedrooms are on the first floor. we never hang out down there, so i didn't want our daughter to be downstairs playing. that means, ALL our toys are off the living room (except most of her books) are in a little nook which is cleaned up nightly. if our daughter's bedroom was on the main floor, i'd have everything in her room.

I did a bit of a renovation in the house with this purpouse. I put together the playroom and livingroom. Both rooms can be together or separated by doors. the toys pretty much stay in the play area but sometimes travel to the living room which is no much problem because it is all together and all enjoyable.
the sleeping room has little things, soft toys, books, pictures on the wall and basically that's it.
sorry for my english but wanted to share this as I have the same idea as your house!!! and we are miles apart.
regards from Spain.

the bedroom is for sleeping, only. we turned the main bedroom into the office, the little bedroom into a co-sleeping room, and the living room into a play space. not ideal, but it forces me to be tidier. i also try to weed out the toys that aren't being used so there are fewer to clutter the apartment.

I live in a 800 sq ft one bedroom - we've split the living room so that my 1 year old has a "bedroom" but it opens up to the living room with french doors. Her toys are in her room, but she spreads them out into the living room during the day, and always cleaned up into her room. My husband and I like to keep our place very neat - we've been told that when the french doors are closed, you could never tell that we have a toddler!

When our grandson comes over we have him use the toys in the living room with everyone around. The challenge has been getting him to pick up. So I designed and built this toy cabinet that helps him keep our living room from becoming a mess.

See a short video here.

Having children play when around adults also helps them share their toys and learn how to treat the toys properly.

We keep all toys downstairs. No toys in their room means less things to distract us when we should be sleeping. Originally our downstairs was a disaster- toys everywhere. Until we boxed them all up, sorted them into catergories: cooking, books, puzzles, dolls, trains, blocks, etc. We put the books in one close-able cabinet along with the puzzles. Then we put the other piles into clear bins that hide in our coat closet. They can only have one bin out at a time. If they want to play with a different set of toys, then they clean up the existing mess and put the bin away- then we open up a new bin of fun. It helps rotate the toys to keep from boredom and keep the clutter to a minimum. We also have a large foldable easel and foldable slide they can play with too! But the play kitchen stays out by the couch 24/7. So ultimately, when we have company over, the only kid thing in sight is the stylish play kitchen. My friends are amazed- and I get to chuckle a little bit inside at my superiority. HA!

Toys and most books in her bedroom, mainly in slide out storage bins in wood frames and a dollhouse shaped bookcase. Her room also still has an adult scale chair so we're comfy while reading to her or just hanging out. Visually pleasing toys, an art easel and a child scale table and chairs are in the living/dining room. For toy migration, we walk around the living room periodically filling up a laundry basket and carrying the basket back into her bedroom.