Adorable Playroom Living Room Combo: How to Make it Work

Living in a house with kids and no dedicated play area can make the entire home feel chaotic and overrun with toys. If you’ve got a bit of extra space in your living room, creating an adorable and well-organized playroom living room combo can help solve your problems!

Disclaimer:  This post is in partnership with Walmart. All opinions are my own. Please note that some links in this blog are affiliate links. The Plus Life will earn a small commission at no cost to you if you make a purchase. Read our policy here.

How to Create an Adorable Playroom Living Room Combo That’s Functional for the Entire Family

If your home is anything like ours, it can easily feel like you live in a very messy toy store. Our daughter has accumulated quite the collection in her two short years, and with no dedicated playroom, our entire house sometimes feels like a play area.

One of my goals for this year is to maintain a more organized home, and figuring out the toy situation is by far the project that will make the biggest impact. I know I’m not alone in this, so I’m very excited to share today’s playroom/toy room update in partnership with Walmart Home.

While we do have plans to finish our basement and create a dedicated playroom *one day*, we needed a solution that works for our family now. We have a long, narrow living room and there’s one corner that has always been underutilized.

I decided to create a “play nook” in that space where we can keep toys organized and (mostly) hidden when they’re not in use.

Our home is mostly neutral, and I wanted the playroom space to blend in with the overall aesthetic of our home while having a bit of personality and color for children to enjoy.

Walmart Home

When I’m taking on a new home project, Walmart Home is always the first stop for me for a number of reasons.

First, shopping at Walmart is incredibly convenient. It’s a one-stop-shop with furniture, decor, organization, candles, tools, and pretty much anything else you could need for a home project.

You can also choose from convenient free shipping, shop in-store, or even do curbside pickup for many items.

Second, you can get high-quality and beautiful products that work with your budget.

As someone who is pretty frugal and likes to spend my money wisely, this is a big one for me. I love that I don’t have to sacrifice quality or appearance to get what I want.

Third, the selection is amazing!

There are SO many options in every category and there’s truly something for everyone. While there is a large selection, it’s still easy to find what you’re looking for with great search and filtering functionality online.

Tap the items below to shop the pieces we used in our living room play area.

Better Homes & Gardens 12-Cube Storage Organizer

No playroom is complete without a good storage solution, and cube storage organizers make sorting toys SO much easier for kiddos and parents alike. For our space, we went with this 12-cube option, but you can find a great variety of storage furniture in different colors and styles here.

Better Homes & Gardens Large Natural Water Hyacinth Boat Basket

This piece might not be the obvious choice for a playroom but we have TONS of oversized activity and coloring books that won’t fit in most traditional arts and crafts organizers. I love the naturally beautiful look of water hyacinth and this is perfect to store those awkwardly sized things that won’t fit elsewhere. Bonus: you can use this pretty much anywhere in your home and it’ll look great!

Mainstays Linen Textured Semi-Sheer Rod Pocket Single Curtain Panel

Curtains make such a HUGE impact on a space, and I can’t think of an easier and more affordable tweak to make to a room. We went with the white version, but they come in a number of different colors and lengths.

These sheer panels allow in a great amount of sunlight and add such an airy/breezy feel to your home.

While we prefer a thicker curtain in our bedrooms to block the light, I’m considering switching to these in all of our main living areas!

The Home Edit 8 Piece Multipurpose Edit, Plastic Storage System

I’ve been obsessed with The Home Edit for years, long before they were best-selling authors and Netflix stars. Their well-organized, clean, yet beautiful aesthetic has ALWAYS caught my attention and has inspired many of my own home organizing efforts.

They JUST launched a line of products exclusively at Walmart, and I am SO happy to be able to utilize their products in my home projects.

For the playroom living room project, we used this multipurpose edit to corral extra art supplies like washable paint, markers, etc. We keep this stash of goodies locked away in our built-ins so our daughter has to come to us to request them. It’s so beautiful, though, that it would look great out in the open!

I’m sure you’ll see me using more of these The Home Edit products in the future. I’ve got my eye on this bathroom organizing set next!

You can check out the entire The Home Edit line here.

Better Homes & Gardens 16″ x 20″ Matted to 11″ x 14″ Rectangle Metal Wall Mounted Picture Frame, Black

While these frames come in a number of sizes and colors, I went for the 16″x20″ option matted to 11″x14″ in black. These are NOT your average plastic gallery wall frames. They are metal frames with matte glass and look WAY more expensive than they are. I am so very pleased with these and will likely use them elsewhere in our home soon!

Better Homes & Gardens Collapsible Fabric Cube Storage Bin (12.75″ x 12.75″) -Cream Cross Hatch

Of course, with great cube storage systems, you need cute storage bins. To keep our space looking neutral we went with the cream cross hatch style, but there are options for every preference!

Chloe and Cotton XL Woven Rope Laundry Hamper, 19″ x 16″, White Jute

This laundry hamper has been repurposed as a home to all of our stuffed animal and doll friends. They can take up SO much space. We’ve tried storing them several different ways and this option is my favorite by far! I love that this hamper is soft so that our daughter can independently look inside to find her “best friend” of the day.

Incorporating a Playroom Into Your Living Space

When your playroom is in your living room, the decorative components become a bit more challenging. You can choose to completely go wild and decorate the space like a “typical” playroom with bright colors and lots of fun elements OR you can choose to keep the decor pieces more in line with the rest of your home.

For our space, I chose to stick with a mostly neutral color palette with white, beige, and black accents with only small pops of color from the toys themselves and our wall art (framed in these gorgeous black metal Better Homes and Gardens frames).

We plan to make the wall above the cube storage a fun space we decorate seasonally and for different holidays. We’ll swap out wall art in the BHG frames occasionally and add fun seasonal elements like garlands, etc.

Future Plans for the Combined Playroom Living Room: Living Room Playroom Ideas

I love that the pieces we used can grow with our daughter and move to different areas in our home as our needs change. When we do end up creating a designated toy room, we’ll already have a great start with these products, and I’m sure we’ll pick up even more goodies from Walmart Home when the time comes!

In the future, we’ll likely add seating like a table and chair set or a small desk for coloring (and eventually homework). Otherwise, I’m thrilled to have this space for our daughter to enjoy alongside the rest of our family.

I also plan to add labels to the storage bins with photos of what should go inside each cube. If your child can read, written labels will be great. The photos are great for younger kids.

I’d love to hear from you – what are your favorite ways to make your living spaces work for both adults and kids?