How to Organize Toys with the Ikea Trofast

I am super excited to share this toy organization system today with all of you! Who doesn’t love an IKEA toy storage idea? After reading this post, you will also want an Ikea Trofast to organize your kids’ toys.

When it comes to toy organization, I -literally- cringe. There are so many pieces to sort (sometimes teeny-tiny ones) that keeping toys under control becomes really hard. Always scattered around the floors, sometimes in different rooms, all over the house.

Does this sound familiar to you? Well, cringe no more because a big part of that problem is solved!

Toy Organization with Ikea Trofast

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What Can You Use the Ikea Trofast For?

In this household, it is all about trains and cars. But mostly trains! And if you have a child between 2 and 5 years old that loves trains, especially Thomas, you know how the collection can get out of hand.

We have many collections, and one that keeps growing is the Thomas’ Trackmaster sets, which happen to be one of the best sets (next to the wooden tracks and trains) but also the most pricey ones.

With that said, I have always wanted to keep these sets in ship shape and one piece. But there’s no such thing as ‘one piece’; otherwise, there will be no point in writing this post. But you get it. We want the sets to be complete.

Organizing toys with the Ikea Trofast storage system

When keeping a space tidy, the challenge I think we all – children and adults alike – face is not having a designated place for things.

In all the commotion of toys scattered around the floors and the shortage of time to sort and clean up and tidy up, we forget that it all comes down to the old saying: ‘A place for everything and everything in its place.’

I love to think that I finally figured it out and realized that once our belongings (toys, papers, gadgets, anything really!) have a space to call their own, everything runs smoother, and we start living clutter-free.

Toy organization with Ikea Trofast

And that is how this Ikea Trofast storage system changed this room forever, and my 5-year-old is learning how to be tidy while having fun along the way.

Toy Organization: Sorting Parts Makes Playtime Fun

With so many bins available, I decided to assign a bin for all the different parts of the Trackmaster sets. And believe it or not, I had 2 small (white) bins and 1 large (red) to spare. So I added two more different toy collections.

  1. Small Thomas’ Take and Play engines and others, and
  2. A cars’ track set.
Toy organization with Ikea Trofast

How I sorted the items could be irrelevant to you if you want to store different toys. However, I think this will give you an idea of how sorting and classifying can help your child become tidier and enjoy playtime even more.

How I Categorized The Bins in the Ikea Trofast

This is how I used the bins of our Ikea Trofast unit.

  1. Engines
  2. Bridges and towers
  3. Tracks Type 2 (they belong to one particular set)
  4. Straight tracks
  5. Curved tracks
  6. Little engines and loose pieces
  7. Take and play engines and loose pieces
  8. Big bridge towers (they belong to one particular set)
  9. Cars track set
Toy organization using Ikea Trofast

We wish we had an enormous playroom where all these train tracks could be set up and stay set up. But we don’t. Lucky for us, our son has the spirit of a railroad engineer, so he loves to take tracks apart and rebuild them in his own way. He’s very creative, I must add.

So, by sorting pieces, our son can find exactly what he’s looking for when he needs it without having to go on a scavenger hunt. Curved tracks are here, straight tracks in there, and all the engines are easily accessible and visible. It is effortless to spot every one of them!

Toy organization using Ikea trofast

With this toy organization system, cleaning up is a breeze! Once again: a place for everything and everything in its place.’ You can’t beat that!

Important Tip when Assembling the Ikea Trofast

Please follow all instructions, and pay close attention to ALL the pictures. The pieces have so many pre-drilled holes that it is easy to get confused. I am not responsible nor liable if something goes wrong. I am just sharing my experience and advice on what I think would work best.

If you are familiar with Ikea furniture products, you probably know they are hard to assemble. Don’t get me wrong, I love them, and for a DIY’er like me, putting them together is half of the fun. But I like using my power drill, and to assemble this toy storage system, you need to use the tool included in the kit.

Toys organization with Ikea Trofast

Pro Tip: When assembling the Ikea Trofast, jump to the last step FIRST! Yes, I know it sounds counterintuitive, but here is the reason. The last step in the instructions is to attach the plastic rails to the inside walls of the cubbies.

The plastic rails snap inside; then, you must secure them with screws (included). I could have used my power drill in this step but couldn’t because it did not fit between the cubby walls. I tried using a manual screwdriver, but it was really hard! Maybe because of the awkward position you have to be in or maybe because I was tired and very impatient.

I opted to snap the rails in, and so far (it’s been over a month), they are holding up in a place just fine. So, for this particular Trofastthe last step is first.

Toy Organization with Ikea Trofast

How do you tame the toy mess? I would love to hear about your ideas and see your projects!

happy organizing, Flavia