Boy’s Room {Settled In September}

I know this post is entitled "Boy's Room" and in the long run, it will be but I thought I should let you know that for a while, there will be a superGirl rooming in this awesome room. 😉

Girly addition to the Superhero roomWe did our last 2 nurseries in veggie tales as  a cute but unique unisex theme. When we moved this time, we chose to do  very gender themed rooms. In the long run, this is how we plan to room our children, no matter how many there are of each gender. We wanted these to "themes" to last many years so for the boy's room, we went with Super Hero!The Boy's RoomWe love murals and have always done them ourselves in other houses. When we moved here, we met an awesome artistic {to say the least} friend who offered to help us with the rooms. Yeah, other than the main base color of the rooms, he did the rest. hehe Boy's Room Cityscape WallThis is the cityscape wall behind the toddler bed. It will stay here and be converted back into a crib when Ellie needs to move into this room {likely when she starts sleeping through the night and/or moved out of the cradle in our room}. Boy's Room Brick WallThis is the brick wall where the twin bed will go {opposite corner as the table} when J moves to a larger bed. The table in the corner is an up-cycled table we found on our upstairs patio in our last house. It was really weathered but still really solid wood. I decided to try a fun technique I saw on Pinterest. Boy's Room UpCycled Table

  • I spray-painted the edges of the table where you would normally scruff up if you were distressing something. The paint job looked terrible because I didn't paint the entire thing; one, the entire thing didn't need it for my plan, and two, I was using leftover yellow paint.
  • After that dried, I took an old tea candle and scrubbed over the edges covered in yellow and then spray painted the whole thing with a thick black coat {or 2}.
  • When that dried, I simply took a piece of a Brillo pad and wiped the edges where I'd layered on the candle wax. The black paint wiped off every easily exposing the yellow without removing any of that layer leading to the wood. So fun! I really wanna try this on something else!!!

On the other wall, we left the fun blue and hung shelves that have been in all our nurseries. This time we did them off centered while making sure they were still in studs. You DEFinitely do Not want these shelves falling on an innocent baby on a changing table! We put pictures of J on the top shelf along with some lil superhero guys. On the bottom shelf, we put our diaper bin and wipe tub next to a fun canvas an artistic student from the valley made for Jamin. Next to it is J's personalized step from my parent {they got made at a local craft fair}.

Boy's Room Changing TableStation Boy's Room Changing Station The dresser was my dresser growing up. It was a medium shade brown {covered in stickers}. Before I used this dresser, it was my dad's. LOL When I painted it with heavy gloss black paint, I also used strips of velcro securing the changing pad to the top of the dresser. When the season of diapers is over, I'm sure there will be some fun clean up to remove the sticky film. This is the breakdown of his dresser/changing table.

Boy's Room DresserChanging TableThe awkward wall that sticks out when you first enter the room we chose to put something decorative.

  • On one wall is a giant canvas a friend from our last church made for J.
  • The other wall has tiny shelves that used to be in our dinning room,
    a hat rack that was in our master bedroom in our first home,
    old frame from my high school days,
    and a wooden letter and cardboard pizza round I painted & hot-glued together to resemble a superhero logo. hehe

Boy's Room Decorative Wall in Boy's RoomIn case you care, here's a glimps into the bedroom closet. I wish I already had the other shelves but up but nope. Not yet. The white wire shelves {from the kitchen pantry} will go depth-wise in the closet below the hanging clothes and will be used for the linens that belong in this room {leaving our "linen closet" available for GAMES!}.

Boy's Room Closet Shelf Boy's Room ClosetHope you enjoyed the tour around our lil Super Hero's retreat.

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The Dress

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I remember being in high school, so excited to find a fancy dress since I was normally a very practical/comfy clothes kinda girl. Formal season {my senior year} was a fun time. Stressful but fun. I'd never been in pageants. I'd been in one wedding when I was ~3, and had never been to a dance before my senior year. This was the year I got to pretend to be fancy some times.

senior promThen, when I headed off to college, I realized I could find really inexpensive formals for the annual "winter formal. #winning

freshman winter formal sophomore winter formalSadly, I never did the wedding planning for years and years but when I finally did go to find "the dress", I was ready to get one I loved. I am NOT planning on doing this again. I headed to David's Bridal thinking I was just looking. I for sucked into the $99 sale...lets just say, my poor mamma paid more than 99 dollars and more than I should have ask her to but I still love my dress. 😀

Multicolor and style Bridal PartyBut for bridesmaid dress, we didn't do the whole shopping experience. I actually handed out color swatches of the colors I wanted them to wear and allowed them to find a floor length dress in the style and price they wanted. I think it turned out great!

If you're looking for anything from wedding dress, cocktail dress, evening dress, bridesmaid dresses, etc you may be interested in going to online shopping route with a place like DressFirst or somewhere less expensive.

For {especially} high school formals, I highly recommend resale shops or consignment events! These things are getting worn once and then tossed. There are tons of them out there for great prices. I have some in my closet if anyone's interested 😉

Good luck in whatever fancy season of life your in right now!

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Playroom Organization {Settled In September}

Playroom Organization

I have posted in the past about our system of centers. I've even created center labels as well as names for the kids to "check in and out of" centers to try and maintain organization and get them to clean their own toys up. This worked for a while and Definitely works with large numbers of children {ie daycares/preschools} but it got a little legalistic in our house and I wanted to simplify when we moved.

This time I made new tags {and still have some to be completed} to label the baskets. I LOVE the baskets, bens, tubs, whatever you call these canvas things. They keep everything organized while making it simple to put things away- chunk it back into the basket!

Panoramic Playroom Shelving Numbered Centers

  1. Library Basket
  2. Home Library {sorted}
  3. Playdough Center
  4. Electronic Center
  5. Puzzle Center
  6. Computer Center
  7. Baby Toys
  8. Ball Center
  9. Music Center
  10. Dress-Up Characters
  11. Potato Heads
  12. Wooden Blocks
  13. Vehicles
  14. Mega Blocks
  15. Homeschool Supplies
  16. Little People Center {village}
  17. HIPPY School Work
  18. Dress-Up Accessories Playroom Closet Organization

Inside our closet we have the Doll Shelf & the Dress-Up Costumes/Outfits as well as extra books {for higher level reading}, large toys {pop-up tent & tube}, and scrapbook supplies on the top shelf.

In case you were wondering:

  • red book basket {hanging on the wall}- $2 flea market find/spray painted planter
  • black bookshelves- Wal-Mart {similar to THIS tall one and THIS short one}
  • plastic book bins {on top of shelves}- oriental trading {wish I had a gazillion more}
  • labels- homemade printable {available at the end of the month}
  • square canvas bins {ON SALE}- target, home depot, anywhere I could find them cheap
  • rectangle canvas bin {one in doll shelf as well as other places throughout the house}- Wal-Mart {years ago}
  • doll house/shelf- handmade by my grandparents YEARS ago & revamped a few years ago
  • quilt rack {dress-up storage}- Pier1 as a wedding gift years ago
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Schoolroom Organization {Settled In September}

In our school/playroom I have created spaces that will help us “do school” more easily. Don’t get me wrong, we don’t do 100% of our “school” in this room but its nice to have have a space to store these items.

Our School Room Organization

In the corner where I’ve set up their preschool table, I have our “school corner”. This is where we are doing morning routine which includes:

  • Chores and rewarding “smilies” for those completed
  • Daily routine chart. We talk about what can be expected that day. They may also come look at this first thing in the morning if they can’t remember what they should be doing before school starts.
  • Calendar wall. Here we talk about the month, date, year, day of the week, weather, season, telling time with clocks

School Room Setup

  • This table is also were we do most of our paper school work with coloring, handwriting, workbooks, etc.
  • On the other side of the room where our wall of shelves are, we have our library and other supplies organized among the other toys.

Organizing our homeschool library"Messy" or "get permission" supplies are of course up higher.

Organizing Homeschool Supplies

To see the rest of the school/playroom organization, read THIS post.

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“Mud Room” {Settled In September}

Our laundry room is definitely a multipurpose room!

mudroom beforeNot only do we have to do laundry daily, store cleaning tools, as well as keep it presentable for guest who may be welcomed into our home via the “laundry room”.

We finished the laundry aspect of this room as well as the “cleaning tools” both in shelves and on the wall. For storing larger tools, like our inside broom and mop, I stole a tool hanger from the garage that was already here when we moved in. Score! There were two so we still have one available for outdoor tools, like racks and shovels.

Cleaning Tool RackWe plan to create a mud room on the other end of the laundry room. Of course, this space could have easily been made into a folding station or even a dirty laundry sorting zone but since this is the area where we will be coming in daily from the garage {and possibly bring guest through}, I wanted it to be used to its full extent. I think an organized mud room would be the best way for our family to use the space.

Part of the reason we haven’t completed it yet is because we don’t use the garage 100% of the time AND because I still can’t decide exactly what I want and don’t want in this area.

mudroom IdeaAt first I thought I wanted cubbies. You know, old school kindergarten-esk cubbies with a shelf, hooks, and a bench area all separated into individual slots. After finishing the hanging laundry baskets I realized the room remaining would make for tiny cubbies.

Now I’m thinking I want a single bench with enough room for individual baskets for shoes would be better with just a row of hooks {lower} or a rod to hang coats on. See, I can’t even figure that out. I also think it would be a good idea to have a higher shelf where we could keep keys and items like that so they don’t get lost. Those are currently in a bowl on top of Big Betsy since ½ the time we are still using the front door.

What type of mudroom would work best for your family? I’ve been all over Pinterest for inspiration and am still not motivated to finish this ½ of the room.

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