Home Tour | Playroom Makeover

Sometimes it amazes me that we ever bought the house we did.  Looking back at the old real estate photos it is hard to know what drew me to the house in the first place.  We really did not want a fixer-upper.  We are that couple who didn't even want to worry about painting after moving in, let alone some kind of DIY project.  But, buy the place we did.  Painting commenced soon after once I realized we had over a week lag in between closing and needing to move out of our rental.

I initially was going to just touch up a few rooms myself.  A friend suggested I paint the shelves as well so they would feel fresh and clean when we moved in.  I took Avinash over to the new house and 'we' painted for four hours.  I got one tiny shelving area painted and basically gave up on that plan.  In between nursing the baby and not wanting him near paint fumes I knew this was not going to work at all.  We had a green kitchen, bedroom and bathroom that needed not to be.  Also, the media room.  Was horrific.  Just awful.  A room I can only describe as a dark plum pit in the middle of our house.

 {These pictures are from our real estate packet.  Apparently this room is where outdated furniture and velour went to die.}

A media room was totally useless for us.  We only have one TV in our possession and have every intention of keeping it that way. What we were in need of was a place to keep ALL THE TOYS. So, we had the room painted.  It took four coats of Benjamin Moore's Simply White to cover all that plummy badness, but they finally did it.

The room kind of stayed that way for months.  A few toys were unpacked and then toys and empty boxes littered the room. 

I had ideas but it was hard to move forward.  We moved all of our cheap white metal Ikea bookcases into that room.  We organized the room a little.  Ryan started going to these auctions at Goodwill and buying old, I mean, vintage toys.  Something magical started to happen.  Avinash and Nandini started playing together.  Making up stories.  Mostly about their new old hot wheels.  Each has a name and a birthday.  They recently had a long talk about what their special powers would be.  Oh my word, it is just amazing to listen to them.

I knew I needed to make them a better place to play. 

Then something else magical happened.  We organized the toys.  All the toys.  My mother in law came to visit and she was eager and excited to help me.  And we actually had a fun time doing it.  She loves reading and playing with them.  Her love for them really showed while she helped me sort and put away all the leftover boxes from the garage.  It just really warmed my heart. 

While having flashes of the Berenstein Bear's Messy Room transformation we sorted toys by type into canvas bins (from Land of Nod) and stacked books on the shelves.  We also cleared out a ton of trash.  Ryan took bags and bags of stuff back to Goodwill to donate (our old stuff, not theirs).  The kids went up north with her for a week and we completed the only real project for the room, putting up shelves.

I started by moving Avinash's globe collection out of his room.  It's for the greater good, plus it gives him more space to display his lego creations.  Totally win win.

Sometimes things start to look worse before they look better.

 Luckily, since everything was already organized it didn't take much time to get everything set up. I tried to avoid overcrowding the shelves.  I like to have a balance of display items, like the suitcases, ferris wheel, and globes with regular everyday toys.  The muppets even found their way on to a shelf of their own.

 I painted a couple more things for the playroom.  The dollhouse looks so much classier in grey instead of pink.  Plus, I used chalkboard paint (when do I not?) so they can draw on the walls if they want. The little magazine rack now holds coloring books and art supplies.

Actual playing.  The hallmark of a great play room :)