Tuesday, March 15, 2011

the kids' room revealed

Its done!  The Princess is even sleeping in there.  At least, she starts out in that room before switching to prime kidney-punching-position in my bed around 2 am.

The before was very orphanage-style, cramped and cluttered. There were two dressers; one for the Princess and one shared by the boys after the Hemnes dresser fell apart.  The boys' dresser was crammed into the closet in order to make room for the changing table and bookshelf.   We also have the ginormous Pottery Barn Lullaby rocking chair.




The after is still orphanage style (there are three kids in a 15 x 15 room, it is what it is), but I think it looks a bit nicer and is less cramped.

We lined up the beds under the window:



We put up a large map from Ikea:

We bought new Malm dressers from Ikea so each child has their own dresser, and put them all together for a dressing area. The maple color of the dresser in the middle (that we already owned) was discontinued, so we went with the white stained oak color for the two new dressers.



My homeless orange lamps came upstairs from the basement, and I added some pictures of the kids as art over the dressers:




We took out the changing table and bookshelf and installed book ledges:




The bedspreads on the boys' beds are from Target a few years ago.  They are *very* vibrantly colored, with pictures of zoo animals.  The curtains are from Pottery Barn Kids a few years ago.

I added some of our Costa Rican souvenirs--suns and moons around the room, and a small mirror over Peter's bed.  Even the pictures over the dresser are from a vacation in Costa Rica.


This little mirror is right over Peter's bed, and is the perfect height for him to see himself.




 The light fixture in the room is a map of the world, and I think its pretty retro cool.


I did not want to completely overhaul the room. My main goal was to make the room more usable than what was we had.  I liked the bedding, curtains and furniture we already owned. I really wanted to use the campaign nightstand and desk that I got off craigslist a few months ago, but unfortunately they just didn't fit in the room.

I tried to keep the expenditures to a minimum, and I (sort of) succeeded. The only items I bought specifically for the room were the two dressers ($300), the map ($150) and the Ribba ledges ($120), for a total of $570.  Everything else in the room we already had.

4 comments:

  1. Ooh! It's very nice :-)

    Also, I don't know why, but I think little kid beds are the cutest things in the world.

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  2. This room is so awesome! The shelves, the lamps, the curtains, love them all!

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  3. Hi, I'm visiting from BYW.

    I love those book ledges - they look great. The dressing area works really well as well.

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