Once upon a time, I spent many an hour ogling the glossy pages of Pottery Barn Kids. And back when we originally set up the playroom in our first home, it actually kinda looked like that. Well, eight years later the furniture is scratched and dented, one of the closet doors fell off, there are crayon marks on the floor and pencil doodles on the side of the bookcase. This is a real room, that is really used – and without the watchful eye of Mommy telling them to keep their markers on the table and feet on the floor. It will be undergoing a transition this year, so before that kicks off I wanted to give y’all a tour. For posterity’s sake, if nothing else.
Here’s how we started on move in day…
…and here’s our playroom today. (I picked it up 2 minutes before snapping these pictures.) We replaced the white carpet with the same unstained white oak we have in the rest of the house, painted all of the trim and replaced the rotten exterior wood door with a 15-light door.
All of the furniture is from Pottery Barn Kids. We’ve had it for about nine years, so I have no idea if any of it is still carried.
The closet has been great for storing dress up costumes, games and bigger toys.
Lest you think our playroom stays in a perpetual state of order, here’s what it looks like this morning. This is a good day as far as this room goes. On most days you can barely step in the room for puzzles, cards and art supplies littered about the floor.
Now that the littles are spending more and more time in the basement playing ping pong, pool, basketball and the wii (that’s another real space I should share) and are bringing home more and more school work on the computer, we have realized that our needs for this space are changing. Over the course of the year, we will clean out the toys (some haven’t been touched in two years), migrate the rest down to the basement, and turn the space into a family office. I have great plans for it to be elegant but functional for the entire family with two desk spaces, a seating area (I have a day bed, some fabulous slipper chairs, a great mirror, and a coffee table in the attic from our old house that might be used), and a completely revamped closet to store electronics, office supplies, crafting items, school supplies and hopefully the lot of my party things.
While I’m usually super sentimental about them growing up and moving on to every next stage, this is one room I won’t be sad to see go :-)
xoxo
