Playroom Redo

The two hardest working rooms in our house are the laundry/pantry and our playroom. Alright, honestly you could argue that each and every room of our 2800 square foot house is hardworking but that doesn't serve me as well for this post. THIS is about our playroom.

Remember my alphabet wall? Here is another view of it.

We have four kids. The playroom sits at the very front of our house, right by the front door. Most people with this kind of floorplan use this space for their formal dining or living room but puh-lease. We are firmly informal people in this house. We decided years ago to use this space as a playroom.

The space has undergone many revamps over the years. The baby/toddler phase was full of plastic and wood toys and baby gates and color and craziness. Honestly, I don't miss those days too much. Today the space needs to function for two little kids embarking on their first pages of homework, puzzle piecing, drawing, and the occasional doll hospital. It also needs to function as a place to house a large percentage of our family books, an art cart and a prime area to look out the window at the garden. Seriously, we spend a lot of time looking at that garden.

I purchased this white Kallax bookshelf from Ikea about a week ago. I am one of those really strange people who enjoy assembling things from Ikea. Weird, right? Anyway, it took just under an hour to get it together and it is SOLID. I love the glossy finish and generous cubby shelves. The clear baskets on the bottom row were purchased at Target. The transparency makes it easier for my kids to see what they actually have to play with. Since this is a playroom and all, I would like for them to play with their toys. The big red lantern is from Home Goods, as is the crocheted giraffe. That giraffe was a total inpulse buy years ago and I have never regretted it. My ball garland is fashioned from felted wool balls I picked up during my recent trip to Morocco. More on that here.

The big globe is a Goodwill find years ago. We have two children born in Ethiopia and globes have played a necessary part in understanding the journey our family went on to assemble all of us. There is something special about using your finger to trace a story on a globe. It never gets old.

The ball that looks like a colorful soccer ball is from our trip to Ethiopia a few years ago. We bought it at the orphanage where our children were living. See the blue cart in the background there?

There she is! This is the Ikea Raskog cart and it is worth its weight in gold. Although, it doesn't weigh much at all so that analogy won't really work...

This cart is command central for all four kids. I have a few chalk painted mason jars that were left over from another project corralling pencils and markers. The two shelves below are strictly for papers and coloring books. Having all of the art stuff in one simple cart has kept the playroom really clean. Like, shockingly clean.

I made the curtains out of some decorator weight fabric from Hancock Fabric. I always forget how much I hate sewing curtains until it is done and hung and I fall in love. These are the exact curtains that I could not find anywhere.

So that's our playroom space. I have listed a few sources below. Do you have a dedicated playroom in your house? What are your methods for keeping it both fun and functional? I would love to hear them!

Sources:

Black and white curtain fabric from Hancock Fabrics
Large silver star: Taipan Trading
Large red wood lantern: Home Goods
White bookshelf: Ikea
Bookshelf clear baskets: Target
Globes: Home Goods, TJ Maxx, Goodwill
Vintage school house chairs: local thrift and antique stores
Art table: Ikea
Art cart: Ikea
Silver stool: Overstock.com

DIY: Playroom Alphabet Wall!

Earlier this year I decided to create an eclectic alphabet wall in our playroom. It started with a few fabric letters I had found at Anthropologie and grew from there. Slowly, I collected letters from Urban Outfitters, World Market, off of ebay, thrift stores, and garage sales. Eventually, I purchased several blank letters at Michaels and embellished them myself.



The whole process took quite awhile. I wanted each letter to be perfect, to tell a story. See the letter 'M' there in the bottom left corner? I dug into my vintage button jar and hot glued every cool button I could find. Then I added old wooden game pieces I had. Do the buttons and game pieces have anything to do with the letter 'M'? Of course not. I just liked the way it looked!



I did the same thing with the letter 'D'. This time I also included some vintage earrings and pins I received from a friend. They bejeweled my new "D' quite nicely.

With my letter 'O' I took some gorgeous yarn I had laying around (I don't knit but I love yarn. Go figure...) and simply wrapped it around the form.

I did a little letter prep each week until one day I had them all! It was like Christmas morning. Now it was time to assemble 26 letters on a narrow wall. Initially, I figured I would go in alphabet order. I am slightly OCD and couldn't imagine NOT keeping the letters in order. But once I got everything laid out I realized that I hated it. So I mixed up letters based on size and texture. I kept my Anthropologie letters evenly spaced (I had the most of those) with everything else. Now it all made sense.

I hung each letter on the wall with special 3M Velcro Command Picture Hanging Strips. This stuff is AMAZING. My husband was extremely concerned about me putting 26 nail holes in the wall; these strips made him feel better about my design project.

If you have the time, this is a great project to tackle. It isn't hard at all. What makes this particular DIY work best (in my opinion) is having many different shapes, sizes and textures in your alphabet. And that takes time to acquire organically. I spent many evenings scouring ebay for "vintage alphabet letters" and "fabric letters" and "painted letters". Also for this project, hot glue is your friend.

This is a motif that would look great as an accent wall in a nursery, childrens bedroom, playroom or even an office. In my house, our alphabet takes up the wall between my foyer and playroom and never feels childish or out of place.

Is this a project you would like to try? For more alphabet wall inspiration check out this board on Pinterest!

Playroom Redo

 
Our playroom is actually the front room of our house.  And while I like to think of myself as a go with the flow mom...I still like my house to have a decently cohesive feel to it.  Ie: not so many primary colored plastic toys near my front door.

So, I pulled together a color scheme I can live with and NOW I am officially happy with our newly redone playroom.

Curtains from World Cost Plus Market.  Table top originally from Ikea but sprayed with a hammered metal finish paint

 We have these friends on top of our very overstuffed bookshelf.  Yarn bombed giraffe from Home Goods, globe from a thrift shop, multi colored ball from our trip to Ethiopia, large star from a store in Utah called Taipan Trading.

I love how things turned out.  White kitchen from Pottery Barn Kids