Finishing Touches In The Playroom: a house log

Mwah, hah, hah. Picture me laughing like a cartoon villain while rubbing my hands together maniacally. That is sort of how I feel when I get to the “finishing touches” part of a room. Home stretch bay-bay!

Remember how the middle makes no sense? Well, this weekend I think we rounded a corner thanks to a few small tie-things-together updates (you know, between all the board & batten we are furiously installing/caulking/painting for Wednesday’s big reveal). So let us take a look-see, shall we?

As you can see, we at last got a new sheet set for the daybed (simply a basic navy blue 100% cotton set from Target for a twin bed) to replace the worn and faded old tan fitted sheet that has lived on this daybed for nearly six years since we got it. We also grabbed a cushy mattress pad while we were at it, simply to make the bed Clara-ready whenever she wants to officially move in (she’s still glad to sleep in her crib so we are following her lead).

Oh and we ended up rotating the rug the other way (do not know what took us so long!) when we at last realized that we got more dots out of it that way (plenty of them were hiding under the daybed when it was the other direction). We liked the idea of walking in and seeing a gradient from the door, which is why we originally put it the other way, but we realized (duh!) that there is in fact a gradient on both sides, so seeing a gradient + dots when you walk in = even more lively.

Among the other small changes, you might notice that we at last brought in the storage baskets for toys & books that were on our list (in those little corners on either side of the daybed). They involved a little “customization” – which made for a lively afternoon project. They are the same $25 baskets we have had from Target all over the house (you’ve seen them here and randomly in the background on Instagram)…

… and I chose to add a playful band of white along the bottom. I simply thought some light paint could brighten them up so the corners where they’ll live will not look all dark and shadowy. All I did was use a garbage bag to tape off the tops of each one and some Frog Tape to hold the bag down so we’d have a pleasant clean line.

A few coats of Rustoleum Universal spray paint later (it has built-in primer and a trigger finger thing to pull, so it is my go-to)…

… and these folks were looking fairly spiffy. The funny thing is that I wondered if any of the spray would pass through the cracks of the basket when it was upside down and get on the inside, but it did not at all, so it was a truly straightforward project (no pouring a gallon of paint into a giant plastic bin and manually dipping the baskets or anything like that).

The one to the right of the daybed is full of toys and stuffed animals and games and puzzles, while the one on the left of the daybed is full of her go-to books.

It is pleasant to add some function to those formerly unoccupied corners on either side of the bed.

And I like that the layout is flexible sufficient to replace the baskets with nightstands if we’d rather go that route when she’s old sufficient for an alarm clock or a cup of water by the bed.

As for the brought in art project that you caught a peek at here, we are back with the details for everyone that asked.

You might remember that we picked up those red dominoes and old scrabble letters that spell “enjoy” at a secondhand store in Austin called Uncommon Objects (more on that here) and I specifically had Clara’s big girl room in mind when I did, since they perfectly echoed the colors going on in here and I knew I could make them into some straightforward yet meaningful art. See, 143 is pager code for I enjoy you (it is the number of letters in each word) so that is why the dominoes are doubles of 1, 4, and 3. And of course the scrabble letters that spell out enjoy above them hammer it home: we have no shortage of enjoy for the bean.

When it came to in fact framing them, I grabbed an old Ikea frame that we already had (are you sensing that we have a stack of unused frames lying around at all times? because we do) and took out the glass frame in front. This was my alternative to running out and buying a shadowbox, since I thought everything would look simply as cute in a glass-less frame and you know we enjoy using what we have.

Another lively little project was one that I got to do with Clara to add a little personalization over the Peruvian poncho that we framed above her play kitchen.

We had a grand old time painting this wooden wall plaque that says her name together (which was homemade by an insanely talented and generous reader from one of our signings- how remarkable is that?!). When I asked her what colors she hoped to paint it, it was no surprise when she said red (red & pink have been her two go-to colors for a while now) so we got some red craft paint out.

I got in on the lively too (mostly I did the harder-to-reach corners and smoothed things out a little while she went to town on everything else). It only took about fifteen minutes (and one coat of paint, which surprised me) but she talked about it the rest of the day. So we certainly will be doing more crafts like this together. I enjoyed simply focusing on something lively with her. And you know I enjoy to see her rock a paintbrush…

It is cool that as this room has evolved, Clara has gradually grown to have more things to do in her big girl room – between her play-kitchen corner, the lively games and toys in her closet…

… the toy and book baskets we simply brought in, and the hooks on the wall that hold her hair clips/headbands/necklaces.

But one of her go-to things is still fake-sleeping in her big girl bed. Cutest thing ever. Seriously, come over and see it firsthand. It involves fake snoring.

Oh and how can I forget her other go-to spot. Her little tea-party table. There is consistently someone chowing down there (from a doll to a stuffed animal). Sometimes there are even compact plastic animal meetings where twelve or so of them congregate on the table. And I enjoy the pop of bright color that the red chair-backs add. Not that the various stuffed & plastic animals seem to notice them.

Today it looks like Clara’s cute penguin dressed as a chihuahua (more on him here) is having a pleasant nutritional breakfast of eggs, cookies, and ketchup. You know, the usual.

Oh and when it comes to adding those navy sheets, they certainly look sweet with the heart pillow on top (a Joss & Main find a little while back) and Clara still loves gazing up at her birdcages (and the cool shadows they make at night), so we are glad that we went with those folks to fill that bare wall-space instead of simply bringing in more framed art. Once she has proven that she does not want to swing around on them like a monkey (so far so good) we might add some lively toys or faux birds or butterflies down the line, but for now we do not want to entice her to try to scale the wall. Haha!

Speaking of some other not-framed art, we have all been having a lot of lively with the flash card shelves over the dresser. As you can likely tell, we have switched out some of the cards for other lively and random objects that Clara likes to look at. And since she has a bunch of flash cards down at her disposal in her toy basket, it is pleasant to have some shelving that is out of her reach for adding more “delicate things” to the mix – like metallic prints of a rhino and an aardvark that we got from a local art fair along with a few cool pop-art Clara prints that a reader named Jenna sweetly gave to us during one of our tour stops. I’d enjoy to add some of Clara’s own art work up here too…

We also brought a few more of Clara’s go-to toys in here from her nursery (like her wooden stacking tree and her lettered blocks). Since the red bowl on her desk is lightweight and made of metal I enjoy that it is not breakable like a ceramic bowl would be – so it has worked truly well for bringing the blocks down to the floor whenever we want to play with them (sometimes not having all of her toys on the floor somehow makes them more enticing to her). The bowl’s in fact from Ikea a while back and I simply spray painted it bright red (it was white originally).

So there you go. A few baskets I painted, a name plaque for the wall that Clara helped me with, new sheets for the bed, some homemade domino art, and more toys/games/books in the room. It is truly starting to feel like a room instead of a “room in progress.” Although we still have a few last things on the ol’ to-do list:

• paint the room (more on that here)
• cut down our old den side table to make a play table (more on that here)
• bring in a dresser (we’d enjoy to find something secondhand) (more on that here)
  
• make/hang some curtains (more on that here)
  
• add a rug (more on that here)
  
• make a frame collage full of animals Clara loves, and even some Clara art (more on that here)
• paint the backs of the chairs along with her play table (more on that here)
• hang our postcard ledges and fill them with go-to flashcards (more on that here)
• install a new light fixture (more on that here)
• hang a few 3D objects that we have in mind for wall decor (how’s that for cryptic?) (more on that here)
  
• turn the junked up closet into an actual clothes closet/reading nook (more on that here)
• get a new set of sheets for the daybed (most likely in navy) along with a cushy mattress pad
• add accessories like more toys, storage bins, personalized art, etc
• refinish or paint Clara’s new dresser (which we got here)
• add crown molding (along with tackling the other un-crown-molding-ed bedrooms on this side of the house)
• paint the closet and the ceiling a lively color (perhaps soft coral or blue?)

Hope you folks have enjoyed seeing this room come together day by day over the course of a month or two, simply like we tackled Clara’s nursery back in the day. Ah memories. And as much as I enjoyed her little nursery in our first house (it was consistently my go-to place to be) I think her big girl room is my go-to spot in our current house, so I am glad it is not simply a first-enjoy thing with kids rooms (I thought perhaps I’d never feel the same excitement as I did that first time). Turns out it is lively every time. Haha!

What did you folks do this weekend? Anyone else working on board & batten? We cannot wait to reveal the full monty on Wednesday!