Monday, February 4, 2013

January Goal Project: Toddler Bedroom, Before and After


If you've been reading my blog this past January, you will no doubt be well aware of some serious nesting taking place all in prep for our second child's arrival in April and as we encourage our daughter's continued autonomy by giving her a special space that is more age appropriate- less baby, more toddler. Plus I tact this project onto the "January Cure" challenge from Apartment Therapy and deemed this my January Goal Project! And the best part is the full revamp was completed by the end of January! Hooray! You can read past posts of the ToddlerBedroom Here

And then follow me after the jump for more pictures and decriptions of our daughter's new room!





The house we are renting is one level and originally our daughter was in the room closest to ours. It was the second biggest room and seemed a great fit. But recently, as we began to imagine a newborn in the house, we realized that it would be for everyone's benefit to move our daughter to the smaller room down the hall- thus keeping her noise and the baby's noise from waking each other up (in theory!). So we received permission and painting supplies from our landlord to paint the wood paneling in the third bedroom. Plus with the addition of the new blinds our landlord gave us, the room quickly felt updated and ready for a toddler!



Painting took up the bulk of our time, but once everything was dry, moving the furniture into the room and hanging the artwork was a snap!


The twin bed is one of two that were in my bedroom growing up. Plus since we already had twin bedding, skipping the toddler bed stage felt right and doable, (with a few modifications)! For the bed, we have a thin vintage mattress without a box spring- this makes the bed the perfect height for our daughter to climb in and out of. In place of the box spring, we simply reinforced the bed with a big sheet of plywood between the mattress and the slates. (The bed usually has a bed rail on it, but it was removed for prettier pictures!)

The pink side table belonged to my grandparents and I painted it a few years ago for our daughter's bedroom. The yellow lamp belonged to my great Uncle, and the pig pillow was my pillow growing up. Our daughter loves sleeping on the velvet side of the pillow. It's the perfect size for her plus it's nice and firm. Go figure!


The pink Duvet cover was one of three things we had to purchase for her room. I got it at Ikea for only $20! My mom bought us the fabric for the drapes (thanks mom!). Since we are renting, I didn't want to make curtains that were too specific to the space that I couldn't undo later. So they are simply two large panels lined with black out fabric. Our daughter was pretty specific and wanted a blue pillow and blue curtains for her new "big girl room" and I managed to deliver on the pillow (from my Mom's childhood) but the blue fabric selection was a bit limited, but thankfully this floral print had the blue and yellow that was already in the room! The toddler loves that I made them for her big room, so I think that overshadows the fact that they aren't entirely blue! ; )


On the opposite wall from her bed, is her closet. If this was our house I think I would ultimately paint the closet doors white and change the knobs... but as a renter that would be a bigger project that would then require all bedroom closet doors to be painted. And it's not a priority. But her closet is nice and long and I can fit her little ikea dresser inside as well as boxes of hand-me-down clothing waiting for summer! 

And to the right is her dress up corner. The accordion rack was in the family, I simply spray painted it yellow this past fall. Ideally I would love a bigger piece of artwork on this wall... and I'm still working on a mirror for this corner.


This might be my favorite corner of her room. I love how all the colors came together as if completely intentional! Plus the hippo print she received from her Aunt for Christmas is really sweet and looks cute sandwiched by the Anthropologie bird plates I received a few years back! The bookshelf was another basement treasure at my parent's house, that came to gradschool with me. A year or so back, the bookshelf was updated with a fresh coat of blue paint for our daughter's room.


And the final corner of her room is the most active one by far! Here she has her kitchen and tea party area. There are many trips back and forth to the bathroom with cups and teapots full of water. "I don't spill, momma, two hands momma, I walking carefully!" Hanging above her table is a large white paper lantern, hard to decipher in this picture.

In this corner I hung the artwork and stickers as close to her eye level as the wood paneling would allow. This reinforces that this area is solely her own. And here is the white storage piece I was sooo excited to find at Ikea! It's a great height for her to play on, plus the storage options are a big help! The table and chairs were from my childhood and I gave them a touch up of white paint, and a new coat of violet, last spring.

So there it is, my big January Goal Project!

There are just a few things left to make for this room- a floor pouf for beside her bookshelf, and a longer pillow for her bed as a decorative accent but mostly to keep her other pillows from slipping down back behind the headboard (a down side to eliminating the box spring). I'll be sure to report back on those sewing projects as they are completed!

I hope you enjoyed this little tour. 
I'll be sure to write a crib-to-bed transition blog post sometime this week!

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