Brothers Share 100 Square Feet

Once again, we did another reorganization to accommodate some sort of new sleeping arrangement.  For a good year now, I have been wracking my brain trying to figure out how to fit all three kids into one room - a room that is just under 100 square feet (about 9'x11').  For a long time, I just sort of threw up my hands, called it impossible, and declared that we must move by the time the toddler turned two.  Well, moving isn't an option at the moment thanks to many things out of my control, so I was forced to put my spatial-reasoning hat on (one that fits me really well actually, thanks to freakish innate ability and an architecture degree), and figure this out.  The toddler was getting lonely in his closet, and we were a little tired of sharing a room with him.  Last weekend, for the first time, he tried to insist on sleeping in one of his big brothers' beds, and so we knew that the time for transition was upon us. 
For awhile, I thought we'd have to do some major rearranging, including moving the bookcase into the hallway, installing a floating shelf up by the top bunk, buying an extra tall-skinny dresser, etc.  After much consideration, and many other ideas, I realized that all I had to do was move the boys' dressers about 5" and then a toddler bed would fit in the corner under the windows.  That was it.  I was able to clear out the top dresser drawer in each boy's dresser to accommodate toddler clothing, so no new dresser was needed, and the bookshelf didn't need to move, because the bed didn't need to be oriented that direction.  Seriously, I was a Tetris-master as a teenager, and it still serves me well.
The best part about this was that, like the closet-nursery, it cost us very little money.  In order to make some room, I had to sell our play kitchen, and I got rid of our pack-and-play, because that era of our lives is over.  Between the two of these things, the proceeds pretty much covered the cost of the toddler bed (by KidKraft, on Amazon, very easily assembled, and sturdy).  I asked around and found a spare crib mattress in good condition that someone wanted to get rid of (so we can keep the crib assembled for a quiet nap-space).  I cleaned out both the closet and the space under the bunkbed and did a bunch of reorganization/decluttering so that I could clear off the dresser for the changing area.  I love how clean it all looks, and I feel like this is a functional solution that will get us through another year in our small space.  It actually makes me feel like it really isn't necessary to have tons of space - organization, and living simply are way more important.  When we eventually move, regardless of how many bedrooms we have, we will probably keep all three together until the older ones don't like the arrangement.  Right now, none of them can imagine the idea of not sharing a room.  They love the company, we love having our bedroom to ourselves again.  It feels like such a luxury to be able to turn on lights and talk to each other when we are getting ready for bed.  It's amazing, actually. 

We moved him in a few days ago, on just the mattress, before the toddler bed arrived.  He is doing flawlessly.  He very obediently stays in his bed and goes to sleep, and he wakes up aright around 7, and has two brothers to chat with before he comes and finds us.  He had a little bit of a hard time staying on his mattress, so I tucked a pool noodle under the sheet and that helped a lot.

Now that he is in a bed, I pulled out the amazing quilt my mom made for him.  I love it so much - a quilt with buildings on it!  The little taxi she added, matches the edge-fabric.  If we had more wall space, I would hang it up, because I think it's pretty much a work of art.

Baby in a Closet

I have taken a huge hiatus from this blog - mostly because I have not done anything creative of note except have yet another baby boy.  I am now insanely busy with THREE boys and I pretty much feel like I'll get back to fun crafts in about 18 years.  Anyway, the newest addition arrived in June and has been quite a handful (our first experience with colic - not fun) and I feel like I am just starting to pick up the pieces of my life again now that school has started and we are forced into a routine.
The new pace of school has added to my exhaustion and I knew I had to do something about it.  Having a baby sleep next to me is never restful for me.  Especially one that is not cuddly, just demanding.  He turned three months earlier in September and I decided it was time to carve out some space in our apartment for him.  He is a very light sleeper and quiet darkness seemed like the way to go to get him to sleep a little better.  We live in the city - a fairly expensive city - and our oldest just started Kindergarten.  So, moving is not really an option for us until at least the end of the school year.  We love our place and our location, and we have a reasonable amount of space, so we are fine making it work.  I have reorganized and "found" more space over and over again here, and it was time to do it again.  This time was the biggest find-space-project I have yet undertaken.  In our master bedroom, we have two full-size closets AND a walk-in closet that is about 5-1/2' square - pretty amazing for apartment living.  I knew if I could successfully empty out the walk-in closet, which I was using as a storage unit and pantry, I could turn it into a pretty believable nursery.  I also knew that the closet had to get completely emptied - no leaving stuff on shelves - because we live in earthquake country and I want my baby to be as safe as possible.  So I worked hard to reorganize every other closet and cabinet to make room for what was in there.  My mom was nice enough to volunteer to store all of our Christmas decorations in her garage.  I managed to reorganize my whole house so that we didn't add any clutter, just really utilized all those closets and now we have a really great little nursery.  It almost feels like a luxury to have a dedicated space for our baby.  Best of all, is that I did it all for pretty much $0 cost.  I spent about $150 at Ikea buying a new dresser for him and a couple odds and ends, and I bought a new crib skirt and a couple of stuffed animals to make it look more like a nursery, but I sold some stuff that was living in the closet originally and the proceeds actually will add up to more than $150 when I am done.  Most of what I used in the nursery were things we already owned (bins, laundry basket, crib, mobiles, etc. - I realize there is not a lot of stuff in there).
In the end, I still have to get up a couple of times during the night to feed my chubby cherub, but I am more than grateful to have our bedroom back.
As for the little nursery décor, I went with grey and white - this will fit in nicely with the big-boys' bedroom should they ever all share a room.  I hung a couple of pictures on the wall to add a little bit of color, but nothing near the crib.  This is my third kid, so I am all about being practical and realistic this time around.
And here are some pictures:

For the next phase of fitting our third child into our small apartment, see Brothers Share 100 Square Feet.

Boys' Room Redux

The constant marching of time - or the continual stretching of a certain almost-five-year-old - has caused me to revisit the boys' room once again.  The toddler beds had to go and since our boys share a room that is approximately 100 square feet, bunkbeds were our only option.  So, we did lots of research, I drove my husband nuts with asking his opinion on things, and in the ends, we bought the sturdiest set we could find - and they were conveniently at our local all-wood furniture store just two blocks away.  Since they were going to be such a massive piece of furniture in such a small room, I chose a clear wood finish. 
As well as new beds, we also decided on new dressers for the boys.  The previous iteration of this room had one six-drawer vertical dresser.  The little one's clothes were up high.  Since then we have realized that he needs to be able to reach his own clothes in order to progress to that stage of wanting to dress himself (duh!).  So, we went cheap: two four-drawer malms in a light wood finish.  I decided to jazz them up a little bit with some giant vinyl letters of the boys' initials.  This served the dual purpose of looking cool and helping them to know where their clothes were kept.
That's the basics of why and what we did in their room.  Now for the inspiration for decor.  About a year-and-a-half ago, I came across the most awesome modern children's bedding by a company called Boodalee, which was sadly going out of business.  I scored two duvet covers at a highly discounted price and then poof! the company vanished into thin air.  I love the fabric.  It is architectural.  It is fun.  It is bright.  It is more like sophisticated-child than super-cliche boy.  The colors were interesting.  I never would have thought I'd be decorating with teal, but the combination of teal and green with grsy and black is completely wonderful.  I love using blacks and grays and white to make colors pop.
The added storage in this new iteration is ridiculous.  The lower bed has a full 12" clear underneath it.  So, after I stuck our pack-n-play, co-sleeper, travel cot, luggage and spare diapers/pull ups, I bought four Ikea storage cubes (found in the kid's section) with wheels on the bottom.  They hold dress-up hats, all the boys' shoes, trucks and balls.  I also scored two extra dresser drawers.  One is for linens and one is for out-of-season-clothes. 
What's new in the room:
~~On the curtains, I covered the previous stripes with new stripes to match the updated color-scheme.
~~I bought a new paper-lantern-star.
~~New dressers as mentioned above.
~~New bed.
Everything else is still the same.  Same bookcase, pictures, etc.  Due to the cost of the bunkbeds (we chose sturdy over cheap - we live in an earthquake zone), I wanted to get everything else done with the money I made from selling the toddler beds and a couple other baby things we were done with.  I managed to do it! 
What do the boys think?  They love these beds.  The little one is prone to nesting anyway, so he likes his lower bunk.  The older one likes the "view" from his bed.  I will admit, though, that more than once so far we've found them both curled up asleep on that top bunk.  After climbing up and down that ladder for a week, I am also noticing both kids are more confident on play structure equipment, which is an added bonus.
It's funny what different furniture does to a room.  In this case, it made the room feel much more orderly and organized, but also more long and narrow.
Here is the updated room:

Boys *NEW* Room - Sneak Peak

I've been in the process of yet another iteration of the boys' room due to our need to upgrade to bunkbeds (that older monkey just keeps on stretching).  I purchased duvet covers from Boodalee about a year and a half ago while the company was liquidating.  I loved the modern fabric *and* it had a definite architectural-bent to it which was a bonus for me...more on that in the near future.  I bring it up because the duvet covers drove the slight color-scheme change.  We went from blue/green/black/white to teal/green/black/grey and I LOVE it.  I love it so much, I decided it warranted a new star-light.  Here it is:

Tonight's decor tip is simply this: these paper-lantern-stars are a GREAT and relatively cheap way to add some interest to a room.  I bought this one at Fireworks (an incredibly fun store if you've never been in) in downtown Seattle, but they sell them all over the place.  This one just happened to be the exact right colors I was looking for.
Stay tuned for more pictures of the transformation.

Boys' Room: Complete!

Whew!  With the completion of the bookcase, I finally finished the boys' bedroom redesign.  I have to say, I love it!  I feel like I was able to maximize the space available - 100 square feet - and add a lot of color without even being able to paint any walls.  Would you like to know what the biggest design challenge was?  Surprisingly enough, I'd say it was that corner window.  When we first looked at this apartment 5 years ago, before we had kids, I knew I wanted it when I saw the giant walk-in closet in the master bedroom AND that corner window.  I have always loved them.  I can't tell you why.  This one is glorious.  It faces North and East and gets the most fabulous morning light.  BUT, it makes it really hard to place furniture - especially two little beds.  So that is why the furniture arrangement might look a bit arbitrary - trust me, the woman who lays out everything to-scale before moving any furniture - this was the ONLY way it would work.  I was determined, since the window sills are low, to not put a bed in front of the window.  I'll get more to window-safety in my true-confessions part at the end.
This whole transition-to-a-big-boy-room thing started back in April when the little one attempted a Superman-esque dive from his crib.  He ended up high-centered on his tummy (somewhat thankfully) and at that point, we knew it was time to make the move.  We had originally wanted to wait until he was as old as possible to move him out of his crib so we could go straight to bunkbeds, but this was a game-changer.  Lucky me, I found a matching blue Mammut bed on craigslist the very next day for quite a steal-of-a-deal (and it was in mint condition - amazing).  My budget was pretty much whatever I could sell the rocking chair and the low 6-drawer dresser for (and I threw selling our double stroller which we were no longer using into the mix to give me a little more to work with).  So, with two blue Mammut beds, a small room, not much of a budget and a request for GREEN, GREEN, GREEN from the older half of the peanut gallery, I started wracking my brain for inspiration.  It took a long time to come up with it, but during a wander through Target, I found these white/black cityscape pillows which I loved and I immediately knew I wanted to do black/white with blue/green accents.  I found fuzzy black blankets to go with their plain white Ikea sheets (the Mammut is a weird size that is neither crib-size nor twin-size so I can only buy sheets for it at Ikea).  A couple of days later, I found these postage-themed decals on a deal-a-day website and I knew they needed desperately to go on a Hopen dresser.  While I was at Ikea for said dresser, I grabbed the green chairs and little tables and it started to come together in my mind.  I was on a roll.  Since I like moder, clean-lined furniture and I'm on a budget, Ikea is my friend.  The problem with this, though, is with a house full of Ikea, it's hard to make it look unique and different and NOT straight out of one of their catalogs (inspiring though they are).  Enter the bookcase which we already had: I decided to paint the bookcase some sort of bright color and figured I would probably never match that bright Ikea blue, so maybe I should go for green.  It stopped me in my tracks - I was afraid to begin that particular project.  Three months later, I got up the nerve to paint it finally and that is a story for the previous post.
About the artwork.  The painting of the child with Jesus was the first thing I bought when I found out I was pregnant with our older son.  I love it and it is special to us also given the importance of religion in our home.  It deserved the prime above-the-dresser real estate.  I found the London map at an art store - it's actually a piece of wrapping paper.  The name-art, I made also and can be found in a previous post on here too, as well as the footprints.  The whiteboard and clock are me being functional.  The globe is our tactile attempt to help our sons understand the concept of "earth" and "the world."
The plant.  I believe every room with a window should have a live plant.  I like to think it's good for the air we breathe.
Now, if you're wondering how this is so clean and tidy, let me tell you I am a master closet-organizer and every square inch is well-used (their closet even stores the crib).  Our living room also has a fair amount of bin-storage for toys.  My main goal is always that every toy has a home that is not the ground.  It works most of the time, except for some of the bigger trucks and a large plastic parking garage (not shown).  I find that if everything has a home, our whole house stays much cleaner and things rarely ever get truly lost.
I love how the room turned out!  It is sophisticated, but comfortable for little boys.  The boys love to play in there and find it calming enough to sleep (another reason to keep as many toys out of direct site as possible).  The green bookcase, in particular, is a huge hit.
Lastly, the true confessions: 1) I actually use ugly, shallow plastic bins to store things under the boys' beds like sheets and part of their enormous car-collection.  2) There is usually a kiddie-gate over the window that opens.  The window has a lock on it and an interior screen, but I am so nervous about it that we never open it and I keep the gate over it at all times (we live a few stories off the ground surrounded by much concrete).  3) There are many more stuffed animals that lay around on beds, but who really wants to see those?  I have tried many times to "edit" the collection, but my sons always protest.
***To view all of the posts related to the creation of this room, click on "decor" in the labels collage to the left.***
And now on to the pictures:

Let me just point something out about my younger son's bed: the edge.  Since he is very young (just turned 2 last weekend) and a very active sleeper, I knew we needed something to keep him in his bed, but I didn't want to go out and buy one of those rail-things.  Instead, I discovered that a pool noodle was the exact same length of the bed (Mammut-owners take note) and I could tuck it under the sheet.  It works perfectly and only cost $2!

Boys' Room: the Bookcase

I finished it.  The bookcase.  The last project I had planned for the room that would tie it all together.  It was quite a journey and it took me almost a week.  There were a lot of tense moments where I was wondering if I would have to scrap the bookcase and just go buy a new one.  I really didn't want to do that.  Not only did I not want to spend the money, but this bookcase has sentimental value to me.  It was mine when I was a kid and it has followed me through life (except for a stint it did in my sister's room).
The reason I wanted to paint it is that the boys' room has very dark wood in it and it was a honey-oak color.  It really stood out in the room in a mismatching sort of way.  About a year ago, I made a deal with myself about furniture.  I was done buying anything that was good-enough-for-now-basic-boring-conservative.  I am an architect and I have opinions about design.  So, I bought some crazy scandinavian-mod dining chairs.  I'll get back to my ideas about design and the related constraints in the post about the boys' room as a whole.  For now, I will leave it just by saying that my new found deal caused me to go bold with the bookcase: apple green.  I LOVE this color.  When I brought home the paint and opened it up (way back in May, I think it was) I knew I had to do this project, scary or not.  I waited all summer.  I was nervous.  I didn't want to destroy the bookcase and I had never attempted anything like this before.
Well, a couple things happened.  I was inspired by a friend's post about finishing her kids' room AND I realized that I had about one week left of warm/dry summer weather before the rains come.  I don't have a garage or a basement, so I was going to have to do this project outside on the deck (6'x8') and I needed good weather.  It was now or never. 
So last Tuesday night, I took a deep breath and began.  I put down the primer.  It of course looked terrible.  On the sides of the bookcase, I decided to use magnetic primer.  If you've never used it before, just note that while it says 3 layers should work, plan for at least 5.  Just the magnetic primer took me the better part of two evenings.  Coat after coat after coat - testing after each.  I knew it had to be strong because I was going to paint over it.  Have I mentioned that magnetic primer is nasty, stinky, awful stuff?  It is.
On Thursday night, I laid down my first layer of green paint.  DISASTER.  Wow.  I was worried.  The vertical surfaces had dripped downward and dried with lots of gloppy streaks.  Thankfully I started on the inside of the bookcase so this was not the end of the world.  I learned from this that when painting furniture, paint only horizontal surfaces.  This meant the whole thing would go a lot slower, but it was worth it.  The other thing I learned on green paint day #1 was that foam brushes are the worst possible tool to paint with.  I couldn't get an even or smooth coat no matter what I did.  I also realized I was going to run out of paint long before I was done.  So, on Friday the boys and I headed back to Home Depot for another quart and some better painting implements.  I then took Friday night off after talking to a furniture-painting-expert-friend who reassured me that I was doing okay and of course it would take more than one coat.  On Saturday I got to work once again after some sanding and using my new smooth, small roller.  Wow!  What a difference!  I was reinvigorated.  I felt like I could do it.  I could finish this.  And I did.  Today, the following Monday, I carried it back into the boys' room.
It's not perfect - far from it.  I learned a lot in the process, though, and I know that if I ever tackle this kind of project again, I'll be able to do a much better job.  I love how the green bookcase looks in the room!  It really does tie the whole thing together.
Here's a "before" shot that I took almost 2 years ago when the room was overflowing with stuff after we moved Austin in with Nathan:

Here's the "after" shot from today:

And, hey, the magnetic primer actually works!  It's great!  It has breathed new life into the gears toy - the kids love it!

Boys' Room: the Drapes

My do-it-yourself experiences working on this room have been varied, but more often than not, I would not hesitate to use the word "disaster" when describing the difference between the vision in my head and what actually happened.  Thankfully the drapes look awesome, BUT they did not come without their challenges.  Here's the story of how they came to be:
The baby-theme to this room was nautical, a sort of navy blue/light blue/white sailboat thing.  I loved it.  When we moved on to big-boy-land, and the black/white thing came to be, I knew the navy blue drapes had to go.  I didn't really want to spend a fortune on new drapes, but I am not a huge fan of the cheapy standard-style drapes out there in stores like Target.  I really wanted drapes with grommets, but I couldn't find black ones anywhere.  In the end, the $12.99 pricetag for black black-out curtains won me over and I figured for that price, I could embellish.  If you have kids, you NEED black-out curtains - take my word for it.  It buys you hours and hours of extra sleep for a small price.  Anyway, these standard curtains were the kind that sort of gather as the rod goes through them.  They were supposedly the same length as the drapes that were already hanging in their room. 
I went to the fabric store and picked up some fairly standard canvas fabric in both bright blue and lime green for quite the deal and grabbed some white grossgrain ribbon for a little something extra.  I sewed stripes on the drape panels and then covered the seam where the blue and green meet with a stripe of white ribbon.  I was IN LOVE, the whole thing took me about 3 hours and I could not wait to hang them.  The next morning, I went to hang the first panel and realized they were too short!  No!  I would not fail.  I loved them too much.  So I wracked my brain for a solution.  Sew an extra panel on the bottom maybe?  Then I had it: sew tabs on the tops!  I liked that style of curtain better anyway!  The thought of sewing the tabs (sleeve-style) did not excite me but I had the great idea to get some wide black grossgrain ribbon and use that.  It turned out to be a brilliant $3.49 fix.  In one hour I was able to sew 8 tabs on each curtain (that was how many I could get out of the spool of ribbon I bought) which was the perfect amount, I hung the curtains and voila! Perfect look, perfect length.

I like how the curtains tie the colors of the room together a little bit more.  We are getting closer...I only have one more project to do: paint the little bookcase green.  I have saved this for last because I am the most nervous about the outcome.  Stay tuned...I'm not sure how long it will take me...

Boys' Room: the Dresser

Since the boys share a pretty small room, organization is constantly at war with clutter.  It drives me nuts.  So, over the last couple of months I have been working on a huge purge.  I wanted all toys to have a home, all books to have a shelf and all clothes to fit in drawers.  This purge was accelerated by my younger son's move to a big-boy bed.  At that point, I had to find space in a closet to store the crib and mattress.  We don't exactly have tons of room.  After selling the boys' small dresser, the glider (since we aren't currently rocking any babies) and some miscellaneous stuff we weren't using and then donating a bunch more stuff, our whole place feels better.  This has allowed me to do some redecoration in the boys' room.  The first and most important thing we needed was a new dresser.  I wanted something vertical that would actually fit all of their clothing with some room to spare.  I didn't have a huge budget so off to Ikea I went with my sister (we love rendezvous at Ikea, it's our hang-out).  I chose the Hopen.  I'm a fan of modern, simple furniture.  Dark stained wood is not my favorite, but it only came in one color, so I decided to work with it and chose black/white as the base of the color scheme in the room.

I wanted to do some sort of travel-theme because I found an old London Underground map to frame, but I was lacking that extra bit of inspiration - that thing to push me into action.  Then I chanced across some vinyl decals on one of those deal-a-day websites and voila! there it was, and the whole room began to come together in my head.  The decals just happened to be the right size to adhere to the front of the dresser.  Since pretty much all of the furniture in the room is from Ikea, I wanted to find some way of making it unique or at the very least, less-ubiquitous.  I am SO happy with how it turned out.  I had been having some serious crafting-fails recently (more on that later) and it felt great to have a success!  Applying these decals was amazingly easy - unbelievably easy - I tell you anyone could do it.  I would definitely do this sort of thing again.  So, the room continues to come together!

 

Baby Feet

Another one of my little projects for the boys' room.  I scanned their newborn footprints and framed them with a poem.  I love looking at those tiny feet on the wall now and it always takes me back for a second or two to when each of them were brand-new.

Here's the poem:

I wish that I could show you
all the things that I have seen.
I wish that I could take you
everywhere that I have been.
I wish that I could indicate
the places where I fell,
And keep you, thus, from tripping
on those “rougher” spots as well.
I wish that I could do all this
and save you from the strife.
But I know that I’d be sparing you
the lessons of your life.
And you must learn those lessons
as hard as that may be,
Just know that you will always have
a helping hand from me.
- Jessica Wesolek

Birth Date Art

I know, I've taken a long hiatus. I think I needed a break.

Since I last posted, my younger son has made the leap to a big-boy bed causing me to *need* to redecorate the boys' room. I've decided to make this a labor of love and create some stuff that I really love, and hopefully the boys will be fond of when they are old enough to enjoy them.
I got the idea for these off of a baby room tour on ohdeedoh and decided to create something similar for the boys. I am really proud of the results and I can't wait to hang them up. The picture doesn't really convey the colors very well, but you can get the idea.  Since they share a room, I am trying to find ways of celebrating their uniqueness while creating a cohesive feeling in the room. I wanted to document a few of our initial impressions of our baby boys when they entered the world. I have also framed their newborn footprints. I'm a little sentimental when it comes to my babies. After all, they are growing up TOO fast.
I have chosen a palate of black/white with blue and lime green. Blue because the beds came in blue - couldn't control that. Lime green because my older son LOVES green. Black/white because it seems like the best color choices to accent the brighter blue and green. I am one who loves navy blue/light blue combos in boys' rooms but since my son loves green, I decided to branch out a bit. I think this will work well. Bold and modern and fun.
Next up: my first foray into painting furniture and embellishing drapes. I also plan to make my own chalkboard using a frame I tried to spray paint VERY unsuccessfully. I figure with enough primer, I'll be fine. Wish me luck.
This room has been percolating in my mind for quite awhile and I am so excited to see it begin to come together! I decided awhile ago that it was time to embark upon projects to improve our living space. I have been working hard at purging to declutter, changing out artwork, improving our toy-storage situation, adding a couple of new house plants, etc. I am loving the small changes.
I can't guarantee to return to this blog as regularly as I have in the past (for awhile anyway), but I am going to try to document the transformation of the boys' room from baby to little boy.