Here yeah ,,, the little people garage is the only thing I have nto yet rotated OUT of the toy room. ALL the kids play with it and music instruments. I have mulitple sets of the Melissa and Doug band in the box.
Every month I have a theme and most times we build something related to it like when it was fish we built and aquarium with a box, made puppets on a posicle stick, used blue chiffon for the water and the kids played with it non stop.
One time we made huge clown hats ...the them was carnaval. Wow they would not stop wearing it.
When it was barn animals, we painted a big red barn, put some stray in it and hay ... Again , it became the favorite toy int he place. So I would say things they create themselfs but can play with it creates extra interest at minimal cost.