House to Home Part III: The Playroom

Today I am sharing my third edition of the House To Home Series. Don't think I forgot about it! :) I took these photos in Feburary (before taking my composition photography class so please forgive the weird photos!) so I figured it was high time to do the blog post.

I posted about the makings of the playroom HERE. These pictures are the updated, and mostly finalized, room.

Thomas' name made the wall on the left side of the room! We hooked up an extra TV for John's party and just left it there. I think we watched a movie once since then in there but I can see the appeal for when the boys are older and we make this room more geared toward a media room!



Seriously- these types of signs are so easy and cheap to make. I have posted about them several times on the blog because I make them so often!

The buckets and drawers have been labeled and are still organized. The boys know exactly what toys go in which bucket or drawer which is so helpful when it is time to clean up. (look how small T Bone looks here!)

One of my favorite new additions is this play table. I was really wanting a bigger table to easily fit the three boys. Also I wanted any cousins or friends be able to join in on the fun. However tables at places like Pottery Barn are way out of my small budget. So I improvised!



I found a kitchen table on craiglist for about $20. It was almost the same dimensions as a Pottery Barn table with the except of the height. Hand Dandy Brad sawed a couple inches off each leg and now we had a great sized table. Add a coat of a paint, a couple coats of poly to keep the paints/markers/crayons from staining it and we have a cheap and perfect play table! I absolutely love it!

The boys have a ton of dress up items. I always thought dress up was a 'girl' thing but boys love to dress up like super heroes, cowboys, firefighters and the like. So I hung up hooks for the hats and masks. Walmart had these cute chevron laundry baskets which we use to corral the clothes.

You can see in the above photo that we took the doors off the frame. We had double doors and they just seemed to be in the way. So we took them off, painted over the hinge space and stored the doors in the attic.

Lastly I whipped up some window drapings. This is actually left over fabric from when I made John's duvet cover. Obviously taking a quick glance at these bad boys will show they aren't professional looking. I kind of made it up as I went along but they do the trick of finishing off the window. I made the ties into small bows which look like bow ties...perfect for a boy's playroom! Fun Fact: Brad and I call this couch the 'magic' couch because within seconds of sitting on it we are fighting to stay awake. It puts us to sleep EVERY TIME which is not ideal when supervising children.

If you notice we have one of those 'teacher' calendars in which you can change the dates. John LOVES this thing! He went through a phase where he would take the wall calendar from his room and rearrange the numbers to fit each month of the year. Sounds so boring to me, but he loved it, and then memorized all kinds of stuff about days, dates, when months started, when they ended, and taught himself patterns. So, this purchase from the dollar spot at Target has been a dollar well spent!

The boys have enjoyed the playroom and I am glad it is all finished up! However, I do already have the layout ready for when it makes the transition to a media room...a couple years down the road...

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Playroom!!

Our playroom is mostly done. At least, as done as it is going to be for a while. So I thought I would share how it turned out.

We ended up with this:



but let's not get ahead of ourselves!

We started with a large room and a crapload of toys. We dumped all the kid stuff in this room when we moved in, but didn't have storage or furniture for it for about a month. Quite the mess! I felt stressed out every time I went into that room!







Since I sat in this room everyday (on the floor!) for a month while the boys played, I had plenty of time to think about what I wanted and how I wanted it organized. First things first, we needed storage. This room is pretty much a media room that we were using as a playroom. So there were no closets or cabinets for storage. Just a huge open space, which is perfect for us! So figured out that I could buy four pieces of white furniture from Ikea to build a wall to wall storage area for the left-hand wall. Well, it almost goes the full length of the wall. There is a space of about 10 inches which worked out well because I could fit the boy's big car toy in that slot.





I made the road on the top of the shorter bookcases, which I posted about HERE.



Eventually I will make vinyl labels for the white buckets, but I need to wait until I borrow the cricut from my sister. This is one of many things I still want to do in this room.

I love the bigger end pieces because it fits the bigger car toys well. It also stores our puzzles and some of our art supplies we use often. The rest of our art supplies are in a hall closet out of reach to minimize messes!







Looking into the room, we added a couch (my favorite part of the room!) that has recliners. Seriously, after sitting on the floor for a month, this couch is awesome! I got it at an outlet store nearby so it was brand new for only $300. Wow! The striped pillows were made from a floor pillow from Ikea that my mother-in-law cut it in half to make two smaller pillows. I made the blue pillow and have intentions of making a second one. But my sewing machine is not up to par and I didn't want to deal with it anymore. I would like to add some kind of window treatment, but not sure what yet.



Next to the couch I put an old school desk to use as a side table. It also is another surface for the boys to build towers or drive their cars.



Looking to the right of the room, this is what you see. (and see how little the boys look...the room is really big! I had a lot of wall space to fill up which is daunting!)



I used a curtain rod and curtain hangers to make an art display at the top of the wall. This was super easy because we already had the supplies! You can tell who painted which picture because Matthew will sit and paint until he paints a hole in the paper whereas John will paint for about 1 minute and says he is all done. :)

I also added an art area for the boys. The kids table and chairs is from Ikea that we already had. (I feel like Ikea sponsored this room!) I used a coated table cloth from Walmart to make the table cloth using THIS tutorial. I love not having to worry about marking up the table and can take it off if we aren't doing an art project. I got the white hanging containers from Ikea which holds some markers, stickers, and glue.



The magnetic boards from Ikea (shocking!) and the boys love them. I don't keep magnets on our fridge because they are so messy and the boys just like to shove them under the fridge. So these were perfect for our room!



I posted about the Play Nice signs HERE and you can download them for free!




So, that about wraps it up! The boys love the new set up in the playroom and we are in here every day. One day I will finish up the last of the details, but I am just happy the room is 'done'. :)

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Playroom Name Signs

Here is another little sneak peak into the playroom that I have been working on. I made these signs for John and Matthew. I made the design on photoshop, printed it out as a poster at Walmart, mounted it to a board, distressed it, and then hung it up! Basically, I used the steps from when I made my Family Tree Subway Art.





So, these look really small in the picture, but they are 16x20. The wall is REALLY big and I haven't finished decorating it yet. Plus, I need to make a third one when we pick out a name so there had to be room for three in that space!

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EASY Road Project

As I have been setting up the playroom, I noticed that John lined up a bunch of his cars on the top of the bookshelves. So, I pulled out some vinyl and cut some quick roads and stripes. He said he wanted a curvy road, so his wish was my command!



Are they perfect and professional looking? Not really. But it does the trick and is removable, so it works for me! John and Matthew use it often for their cars...and for building towers apparently.





Sidenote: How in the world have we acquired sooooo many cars/trucks/planes??? Is it just me, or do they multiply when I am not looking? This bucket is filled to the brim and we have tons more in the shelves!




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Playroom Freebies

We have been working on the boys' playroom over the past week or so. This room is quite large (walls are 155 inches long!) so the boys love playing in there. The room isn't totally finished yet, so I am going to wait to share the whole thing. But, in the meantime I wanted to share a freebie that I made for the room.





You have probably seen these types of sign around Pinterest or Etsy. I just whipped these up using Photoshop, printed them on regular paper, and framed them with extra frames we had from the old house. Very easy and cheap! So, I wanted to share them with you- feel free to save and use (but please don't sell them!).

Here is what they look like in the playroom:





I can't wait for the room to be finished and share the rest of it with you!

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