I'll toss out my thoughts on toy boxes.
Everyone is so concerned with toy box safety. They go on about air holes, slow top lowering devcdes, no latches, and so on. My thoughts are: For a little kid, no top at all. You want to teach your kid to pick up his/her toys, but a little kid is gonna have enough problems just getting the toys in the box, let alone lifting, and holding a top. Give the kid a break. Besides, any time there's two kids, one's gonna get in the toy box, and the other one is gonna bang the top on his/her head, and/or fingers, and/or sit on the top so they can't get out. Later on, when the kid gets older, you can put a top on to make a seat, if you want. That's only common sense to me. If an older kid lets the top slip and bang him/her in the head or on the fingers, just tell them not to do that again. But if they do it once, they should know enough on their own to be more careful next time.
About probably 11-12 years back I made a simple, and large, open top toy box, with large cutout frogs making up the ends. It started out at my son's mum-in-law, while she was doing babysitting. It's now in the possession of my grand-dau, still no top, it's overflowing with stuffed animals, so you couldn't close a top even if it had one.
But I figure a pirate teasure chest is for personal treasures, not toys. And personally I would have wanted a padlock on it, and not to be large enough for anyone to get in to it. ****, I just described a tool chest.
