If you are having someone make shelves for you, I would base the design off of what type of containers you plan on using to store your toys. At one time I had one of those shelves that the buckets kind of sat in on the slanted shelves. Those did not work out for me! I now use the buckets on the standard 2 shelf units that can be purchased at the big box stores. I have two of them. Books go on the bottom shelf, and the other two shelves have buckets on them of which I rotate toys. I also put puzzles, playdough or coloring items on the top of the shelf, that also gets rotated. One shelf is in our front closet where I also store nap mats and toys get switched between it and the other shelf, the other shelf is out and accesible at all times, though they do need to ask to use items on the top shelf. I definately have dumping going on with the available buckets but it is with the 1 1/2 to 2 1/2 age range, and frankly I think that is a developmental stage that while annoying, is just what they do. I have never had anyone try to climb the shelves, but have had them try to climb the kitchen! Books here are turned into laptaops. They take one for the monitor and one for the keyboard and set them up and type on them. Drives me batty, as I think books are not toys, but hey, they are using their imaginations! I think if you only have 6 kids, I wouldn't worry about having a lot of shelves and having lots of toys available. I think it just makes more work for constantly cleaning up, and I don't think kids get as engaged because there is just to much stuff. I have 4 large buckets that contain dolls, lego's, foam blocks, and teddy bears, that I rotate out as well. Long story short, I would strongly consider what type of storage buckets you want to utilize and build your shelves from there!

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