A Shelf Can Be an Awful Thing

Our townhouse's almost open main floor layout doesn't allow for much space to hide toys, and I'm not comfortable letting our 13 month old, Mia, play in her room upstairs unsupervised. So a good chunk of her play things reside in our living room. We have this nice little window space that once held a fabric tote of toys, her little chair and her lion....

Well it worked for a long while, and never looked terribly messy. Until the toys started reproducing. My husband loves legos, as does Mia. And he is more than happy to spoil her with duplos. What started out as one box of duplos became two overflowing boxes of duplos, a large plate, and an alligator that eats them (Okay- I'll admit the alligator was my birthday gift to her). Then her birthday and Christmas came and suddenly there was so much the poor girl couldn't even get to anything.

*sigh* The OCD part of me is so embarassed by this mess, and the Mom in me can't believe my girl is big enough to be able to play with toys.

We did some research and tried to figure out the best solution, knowing that the living room arrangement will change once we finally find that perfect sectional for the right price (so before this new year is over) and also knowing we don't want to give up the empty space we have in the living room by getting a coffee table or ottoman that has a lot of storage space. My husband discovered that Ikea's expedit shelf had the perfect dimensions to fit in the space, so we decided to go get one.

We grew up in an area with no Ikea's nearby, so let me first say for two HGTV addicts with plans to purchase an old home someday and spend years remodeling it,  their showroom floor was pretty awesome. We got so many new ideas for Mia's "Big Girl" room. We tend to like older furniture with character, but it was still a pretty neat experience. 

We got home just in time for lunch and a little bit of play before it was time for a nap. It turns out the box doubles as a slide for toddlers. Mia kept climbing up it then letting her body slide down backwards.

We found our first piece of Ikea furniture to be really easy to assemble. We got it done with plenty of time to spare before nap time was over.

Then we quickly loaded it up with all the fun stuff.

I didn't want to pay $18 a basket, so I'm still on the hunt for baskets. The fact that the shelf comes
above the window ledge also bothers me more than I want to admit. So ironically even though we bought the shelf because it fits that space I'm considering moving it.

And how did Mia like her new toy shelf? 

She hated it.

She saw it as soon as I was bringing her downstairs and immediately started crying. When I set her down and tried to get her to play she started throwing herself to the ground and wailing. I've no idea if she was still tired, didn't like the change, or mad that we did it without her help but honestly it was a hilarious reaction to a new shelf.

Does anyone have any stories to share of ridiculous reactions kids have had to any changes in the home? And does anyone have any suggestions for baskets that will utilize the maximum space in each cube without an almost $20 price tag?