what to do with the playroom?

Let the decorating begin!

Oh wait, I have to finish unpacking.

I have unpacked the playroom.  I was planning on buying a new sofa for the playroom, but the Murray sofa I already have from Room and Board is the perfect size, and the kids have broken the springs on the seat and peed on it anyways, so I decided to stick that sofa in the playroom and buy a new one for the living room.  (The new sofa is supposed to arrive on Sunday, so hopefully I'll post pictures of it then!)

Its still a mess. 

The tv is not centered--we couldn't find a stud anywhere in the middle of the wall, and the Mister drilled many, many holes to find it, so we went with off-center.  That puts paid to my idea of hanging something on either side.  Ideas for decorating around a tv stuck randomly at 3/8ths of the way across on a wall?  I am not really the kind of girl who places art organically, I am more of a rigid grid type person.  This is probably going to drive me nuts the entire time we live here.

The playroom shares space with the dining room--its a long, 20 x 13 room.  One half is the playroom, and the other half is the dining room.  I had hoped to do a banquette in the dining room, but I cannot find a seating solution for an amount of money I want to spend that doesn't involve mounting kitchen cabinets to the wall, and thus I am putting that idea aside for a while.

The nice thing about this space is that it gets great natural light.  The bad thing about this space is that the natural light will sear your eyeballs in the morning, especially where the sunlight comes in through the high window and glares off the glass table top.  I'd like some curtains in here.

I am, however, undecided on what color direction to go here.  And whether I should do curtains? Pelmets?  Roman shades?  What to do with that top window, which doesn't have blinds like the others?

This room is open to the kitchen, which has navy blue tile counters, and the toy storage is contained in bright green bins, so I'd like to work with these colors.  The room is also open to the living room, which will have a brightly colored curtain pattern including red, teal, green and yellow.

I'm partial to the Stockholm Blad curtains from Ikea.  I think cobalt blue and bright green are a fabulous color combo, so the curtains and bins would work nicely with each other. 

We had the green colorway in our playroom in the apartment, so obviously that works as well:

What to do?  And what do I do with that window up top?

Sofa for the playroom

The playroom and dining room space is a long space, about 20 feet long by 12 feet wide.

The space to the the left will be the playroom space, and to the right, under the light fixture, will be the dining space.

My plan is to put a sofa in the middle of the room facing the back wall, so the back of the sofa acts as a room divider.  This means I need another sofa, since the living room around the corner will have our other sofa.  

My first thought was to buy a leather sleeper sofa.  This sofa will be in the playroom space, and having a wipeable surface would be great with the kids.  I know that we will have plenty of visiting family and friends, so a sleeper sofa seemed like a good idea, especially since we don't have a guest room.  Some cursory internet shopping, however, revealed that leather sleeper sofas are mostly ugly and start around $4,000.....so.....I'm not getting leather or a sleeper sofa.  

Moving on to less expensive options!

A strong front runner is the Movie sofa from CB2, which was a contender last year when we bought a new sofa.

Last year we both said "that's too modern and a bit too slouchy," but it was definitely comfortable.  And I don't mind how it looks--for my playroom.  I wanted something a little more sophisticated for my living room, but for a playroom, I think it would be just fine.  Also, a huge plus--its a tight-back sofa, so my children would not disassemble the sofa fourteen times a day, as they do with my current sofa. (Every time I want to sit down I have to pick up all six cushions off the floor and put them back on the sofa.)

One drawback to the Movie sofa is that it is 88 inches long,  The room is 12 feet wide, and the sofa is nearly 8 feet long.  After we move in I will tape off the dimensions of the sofa to see how it feels in the space.

Another possibility is the tufted chesterfield sofa from West Elm.

I have yet to sit on this sofa, so I can't speak to its comfortableness.  But, it does have two advantages; it is a tight-back sofa without cushions, and it is 77 inches long.

The Club sofa from CB2 is also 77 inches and a tight-back:

I really like this leather sofa that Dana at House*Tweaking bought for her new home:

Its leather and its the right price, but it seems to be sold only on the internet, not in stores.  I am reluctant to buy a sofa without sitting on it.

Seen any good sofas lately?  Would you buy a sofa without sitting on it first?

your next design challenge: a rug that sears your retinas

Here's a picture of our front lawn:

Here's a picture of the carpet in the new house:

This looks a bit teal, does it not? I assure you it is an ugly hunter green. 

Notice any similarities?

In the house we will be moving into, two flights of stairs and the entire third floor are covered in grass-green carpet. Actually, I think the lawn color is more attractive than this carpet. Its a pretty high quality rug and very soft.  Its high pile, so another rug layered on top probably won't work well.  Its a rental, so removing and replacing all that carpet is not an option.

This color is not in my top 5, top 10, or even top 100 colors I might want to decorate around.

I can live with the stairs being this color, I guess.

My dilemma is the third floor.  It is spacious, has room for lots of furniture, has a large main room and a smaller room in front, and is covered wall to wall in emerald green carpet.  The "master" bedroom, on the second floor, is fairly small, will be quite cramped with a king size bed and one dresser, and has a "walk-in" closet that when I walk into it, hangers brush both sides of my head.  Thus, my dilemma is do I make the attic the playroom, and keep the master on the second floor, or do I make the more spacious attic our master bedroom, and put the playroom in the tiny master bedroom on the second floor?

Option 1: Use the third floor as a playroom, and keep the tiny "master bedroom" on the second floor.  From a design/aesthetics perspective, this works great.  Functionally, it kind of sucks.
Pros:
-My white and green Ikea Stockholm Blad curtains in our current playroom, and the green baskets we already own will work with the emerald green carpet.  Designing around the ugly carpet problem solved!
-the main attic space will make a nice playroom
-the little second room will be a nice office space for me and the Mister, and I can hang out in the office when the kids are the playroom
-I can pick whatever design I like for the master bedroom on the second floor

Cons:
-The master on the second floor is SMALL.  We have a king size bed, a long dresser, and a tall dresser. I don't think this will all fit in the room, and if it does, its certainly going to be cramped.
-Where will all our clothes go? There is definitely not enough hanging space in the closet for the two of us.
-The attic is gabled with low sloped ceilings, so I will have to buy more low cube units to store toys, as the tall Expedit we have currently will not fit in the attic.
-The Purple Beast sofa will not make it up two flight of stairs, so I'll need some other seating arrangement.

OPTION 2
Make the attic the master bedroom, and put the playroom on the second floor.

Pros:
-IF--and this is a big IF--I can get all the furniture up the second flight of stairs, the attic is plenty large enough for our bed, furniture and clothing storage (we sound like clothes horses, don't we?)
- its the third floor, I can just shut the door, no one but me and the Mister ever has to go up there.
-having a playroom on the second floor would be a wee bit easier to hear and keep an eye on the kids while making dinner, etc.
-most of our playroom furniture would fit in the master bedroom, including the Expedit unit

Cons:
-SUFFERING THAT CARPET IN MY BEDROOM, OH THE HUMANITY
-seriously, I'd have to design my calm, relaxing bedroom around that damn carpet
-did I mention the carpet?
-I'd have to look at that carpet every morning and every evening
-I think we can get the bed up there (it was delivered to our house folded in half, so I'm assuming we can do the same thing to get it up the stairs), but I am unsure that the two dressers would make it up the turn in the middle of the stairwell. I could be forced into keeping the attic as a playroom regardless.
-that carpet.  Seriously, that carpet.
-No, a throw rug or five throw rugs are not going to cover it up.  That carpet is there to stay.

I have six weeks to figure out what to do.  Invisible internet friends, what should I do?

the playroom

I have yet to show the playroom on the blog.  That's because normally the playroom looks like Charlie Sheen's trashed hotel room (minus the ladies of the evening and the briefcase of coke).  My kids are rockstars; they can demolish the playroom (any room, for that matter) in under 30 seconds.  But I've made an attempt to clean up and record for posterity.

I don't have any before pics.  When I started with this room, there was a red Ektorp loveseat that had seen better days, white curtains with a band of blue and brown at the bottom, and a mix of turquoise blue and green baskets.  There was no attempt at "decorating"; it was simply what we had on hand when we moved in.

Then one day I decided that I NEEDED the Blad curtains from Ikea.  I'd been eyeing them for years, but hadn't ever thought of a room for them.  And the curtains had the red dots that actually tied in the red sofa.  Then it occurred to me--hello, why do I have all the green baskets in the hallway and the blue baskets in the playroom??  I switched those around, and then the room looked almost like I had planned it intentionally.

Then I got a new sofa, the red loveseat moved out, and the Purple Beast moved in.  While I detest the Beast on visual aesthetics, I will admit that it is quite comfortable, and since it has already suffered all manner of indignities over the years, I am a-ok with letting the kids put more holes in it.

Now the room looks like this:

Luckily, you can't smell this room through your computer screen.