The Kids Room

I have progress to show on the kids room! Creating a bedroom space for my children is always near the very top of my priority list when I move into a new home. Kids aren’t asking us parents to pick up their lives and have massive change. And the disruption, even if it is ultimately a positive thing for them, can still be very difficult and stressful for them. So I always give their personal space character, comfort, safety, and joy as quickly as possible! Their room gets the royal treatment before any other room in the house.

Quick cap on what happened to transform the old granny dungeon (check out the "before" photos below!) into the bright kids space it is now: new carpeting, wallpaper removed, re-plastered popcorn ceiling, painted walls, new sconce, window treatment replaced, and outlets/switches upgraded. New windows, trim paint, and new door and hardware are still to come in this room!!

Now onto the styling and designing part.

This room was a real challenge for me, if I am to be honest. My 6-year old son (Cy) and 20-month old daughter (Leona, or Leo for short) share this room. To design a shared room for a girl and boy, so many years apart in age, was not as easy as I anticipated. Add to the fact that the room needed to be multi-functional for Cy to do remote learning in, and hold two full-size dressers and beds in a reasonably sized room, but not huge room by any means, gave me layout agony for weeks.

Let’s start with the beds. Originally, I dreamed of having two twin beds on either side of the window looking super quaint and cute and space between the kiddos as they slept so they felt a little privacy (and hopefully less play when they are supposed to sleep!). But I ran into two problems: 1. The width from wall to window is not equal on both sides and a twin would not fit in the “perfect” way I imagined on the lesser side and 2. This layout would make it very cramped to work with two dressers and a work station and all the other little stuff kids “need” to have in their room to feel safe and happy. So IKEA Kura bed came to my rescue. After signing up to receive notices when it is in stock, I rushed for order as soon as that in-stock email came in (seriously, this little bunk is popular). I love this bed because it is very low profile making me feel safer about the little tykes having a bunk in their room.

I initially had two twins in the bunk (like normal and for how it was intended) but it just didn’t give me the safety I wanted for our little one so I traded in the full-size mattress for the bottom and laid it perpendicular. Now we all love it!! Leo can roll around safely with more room to spare while I feel a tad better about safety if Cy accidentally falls off the top bunk.

I will add that the top bunk really came to life and Cy was ecstatic once I added the little reading light and acrylic book shelves. This way he can read before bed or in the early morning without ever climbing down. He loves his little private retreat up there.

The next hurdle in this room was color scheme. Cy wanted turquoise and yellow. I had mostly blue and orange from his last bedroom, and I wanted to incorporate a more feminine touch for Leo. Kids bedroom color scheme is always a difficult one because in Feng Shui too much color - particularly active shades like pink, red, and even bright oranges - can be too stimulating for sleep time or keeping kids chilled out. Especially when you want to create an oasis for your children to relax in, more neutrals can be the recommended path. But WHAT KID DOESN’T WANT COLOR in their special bedroom!!?? My studious mind constantly told me to “calm it down” but ultimately color won. Color seems to always win in my house. I love color, kids love color. It makes us happy and I finally decided that as long as they slept well in their room and stayed healthy and happy kids, I was going to break some rules. And truth be told, I love breaking design and Feng Shui rules. I always say 'do what feels good'.

The other challenge was adding in something "old" with character to all the new contemporary and clean-lined furnishings that we already had, along with the new modern bed.   I bought the teal vintage dresser for Leo on Craigslist and I LOVE it!  It adds just enough vintage character to calm the angular lines elsewhere in the room.  I would normally like more than one vintage piece, but I wanted to buy new stuff as little as possible since I had good-functioning kids furniture that we know will get lots of use and abuse in the coming few years.

Do I have any regrets? One. I really wanted to put in a fun printed Roman shade for the window covering, but in my quick hustle to make fast choices (and fast window coverings across the house) I chose the easy peasy cellular shade option to match with other rooms and be energy efficient. But it doesn’t completely block out the light (which kids need for good sleep) and I think it is kind of boring. But that is something I can change up after I get some other projects off the list. And this is not so much a regret, but the rug is not perfect. It is just what I already had and the color scheme was a good mix for the room. It also gave an extra layer of protection from all the nasty random crusty stuff I find on the floor. How do kids have grimy hands ALL the time??

The bedding scheme is also a WIP.  Currently it is a hodge-podge of bedding that we already had, but I think it works in this eclectic and colorful room for the time being!  I'll get something more cohesive in time.  

Even though I am constantly shifting things around and have more to do in this space, the kids love it and we all enjoy ourselves when we hang out in this little fun oasis. :)