For me I loved and payed a lot of $ to have the toys stored neatly away in organized bins behind the doors of beautiful built-ins I had installed almost two years ago - but you know what? I just realized that in the time since then my DD has not played with 75% or more of those toys. While of course I could have been one of those moms who put out thematic weeks of play but I was just thinking last week how sad that my quest for an aesthetic storage solution cut off my kid's time with some very special toys. It also points out that she obvi has an excess but honestly, she played with some of those toys all the time. Of course - it's going to be super easy for me to now pass these toys on (the time has past/she's moved on) but in my heart of hearts, I feel a little guilty that I micro-managed her. I wish I had been a little less anal and allowed some of the chaos of childhood reign.

We have a huge wall full of PBK Cameron system. Love it.

The bottom row is a single row of drawers (great for hiding odds and ends and little stuff)

On top of that we have open cubes. (2x2) Great for books and Montessori style toys- puzzles and things. Easy for the kids to reach and out back. One of the cubbies has a basket with mr potato head stuff.

On top of that we have the cupboards with doors. Play, board games, art supplies, and other hard to organize or needs supervision things are in here.

Finally the top most row is another set of open cubes. Bigger kid books for when they are older, craft/science books and kits, as well as photos and decorations.

It's worked out really well for us! We have 3 verticals, 4 rows. Takes up most of one wall of the playroom and looks great!

We have bookshelves in our living room. The top is decorative and the bottom has drawers full of toys. It is nice to be able to close it up. Even in a playroom, not having every single toy visible seems less distracting. My 2 year old has never had an issue opening a drawer and they are self closing so no pinched fingers.
Also, I hate the look of the square cube storage that is in every single home. I also don't think it is as practical because I think a lot of the time each cubbie ends up being a mess of random toys just contained in that one bin vs. being sorted and organized among the bins.

A combo. I got slow-closing cabinets so we won't have pinched fingers, plus a few open shelves. I don't want to see tons of kid crap out which is why I wanted cabinets/drawers. But it's simply not practical to have everything out of sight.

Books are out, and some of the smaller things go in baskets in shelves.

looking at the PB Kids wall systems for a big open area in our new playroom- trying to decide between those cubic pieces with the open cubbies (where you have to use toy baskets/bins) vs. drawers (some of them have drawers on the bottom) vs. cabinets? i kind of hate constantly having bins, but obviously some toys are little enough they need bins. i like idea of cabinets and drawers to not have everything visible? but what are you all finding most practical?