Tuesday, February 1, 2011

The playroom!

This is a project I've been working on for months, and it's finally finished! I'm really proud of the new playroom and I'm excited to show it off. :-)

We had an extra bedroom that we were using for storage, and when finally realized another child wasn't in our future, we decided to convert it into a playroom for Carter. The two bedrooms are connected by a Jack&Jill bath, so Carter now essentially has a suite, LOL. The room was stuffed full of boxes before I started, and it took a while to get that cleaned out. A garage sale helped, and also funded quite a bit of the cost of the room. When it was finally empty, this was the starting point.

Playroom 01

I painted the room the same color as Carter's bedroom and bathroom so that it would all flow nicely.

Playroom 02

I had been doing a lot of thinking about the room and had worked out a design that basically left as much floor space as possible whole providing lots of storage. I decided to buy most of the furniture from IKEA.

Playroom 03

I got four of these storage units, which could be customized with either shelves or bins, and on taller unit. They're solid pine and very sturdy, so he can climb on them and play on them and everything. I added shelves on both sides for vertical storage, since we needed a place to put bigger toys that wouldn't fit in the bins. In the corner you can see the TV. There's also a DVD player so we can watch movies.

Playroom 12

I painted this wall with magnetic primer.

Playroom 07

Playroom 08

We then repainted the wall green.

Playroom 10

Carter enjoyed helping paint.



And voila! Magnetic wall. It's not as magnetic as your fridge is, but magnets stick to it. See the video below for a view of the finished wall.

We also changed out the light fixture. IKEA has some adorable lighting for kids, and Carter loved this sun ceiling light.

Playroom 04

He also loved these stars and moon sconces.

Playroom 06

Unfortunately, they just plug into the wall, so the cords just hang down and plug into a power strip and don't look very nice. I had a plan to conceal them, though. I found some brown electrical tape, and I went to Lowe's and had them match the color, then painted a tree mural on the wall. I basically free-handed the tree, and it turned out really well. I then wrapped all the cords, tacked them to the wall, and painted the tacks and the switches brown as well so it all blended in. For the leaves on the trees, I got several shades of green and had Carter make handprints on the tree.

Playroom 13

Playroom 16

Carter had fun making handprints! He also got a lot of paint everywhere, as you might guess.

Playroom 15

Playroom 14

The finished tree mural. I think it turned out really well!

Playroom 17

The tree is the backdrop for the music center. You can see Carter's drums and guitar, and those pockets on the wall contain lots of little instruments.

Playroom 18

We're going to use this little strip of wall between two doorways for a growth chart.

Playroom 18

For the whole picture, check out this video tour this of the playroom that shows all the cool things we've done.



And that's it! After months of thinking about it and working on it, it's finally done! Now we can enjoy it. We spend a lot of time in here already, and I hope it's a space Carter gets a lot of enjoyment out of for years to come. :-D

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