Posts Tagged ‘pottery barn kids’

Some Playroom Ideas

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Posted by Rebecca, January 29th, 2013

Ever since we added the SmartStrand carpet to the playroom, we have been living in there. Like, Mike and I literally sit on the floor in there all the time and we hardly use our family room anymore. I bring my coffee in there on the weekends (or if Easton wakes up ridiculously early during the week) and we just play.

Just before Christmas, we temporarily moved the Expedit that used to live in the office back into the playroom, but we placed it horizontally rather than vertically.

We placed it on the wall that you don’t see when you look in, just to keep the clutter out of sight for now.

Yes, I took these pictures around Christmas time and never got around to writing this post. Whoops.

While it works temporarily, Christmas brought along loads of Fisher Price and about 4 toys that require different sizes of balls that are currently thrown all over the room. Easton throws just like Mariano Rivera, watch for yourself!

YouTube Preview Image

And then applauds himself. Humble, yet proud 🙂

When he’s not hurling fast balls, Easton is at such a great age that he is able to entertain himself for a few minutes at a time. He loves his playroom. His latest trick is crawling away from us and proceeding to pull toys out of the baskets and Expedit…resulting in a giant mess already.

He has some toy cars in one of the bottom cubes that he likes to play with, while actually laying in the cube.

Our original plan, over a year ago, was to add some Ikea bookcases turned built-ins to the room ala Centsational Girl.

(via Centsational Girl)

I still love this idea but the problem is, building in storage is relatively permanent. The room also has a floor vent in the corner that would make this project less than easy. The more we’ve thought about it, the more we think it’s a good idea to do something that is easy to remove. Let’s face it, this room won’t be a playroom forever and it will evolve as Easton and his future siblings grow. Maybe we’ll want to add a table? Or a couch? The room is relatively small (about 11’x13′ I believe) so we think that having more of a modular storage system would accomodate any changes we want to make.

Cue the Cameron storage system from Pottery Barn Kids.

(via Pottery Barn Kids)

While I like all of the storage that these units would provide, what I like more is the fact that they have straight lines and would be easy to DIY since the price is frightening. While I would like some closed storage mixed in, right now Easton is a pro at opening doors and getting his fingers stuck. Being able to add closed drawers/doors as he gets older and can manuever them would be great.

As for what direction I’m thinking for the rest of the room, we already own two pieces that have inspired me for this space. The first one is this New York print I picked up on Fab over a month ago. I ordered Mike some things for Christmas and I was close to free shipping, so I added this adorable $15 print I fell in love with.

I love the mix of neutrals and the bright yellow taxi. The grays and browns bring in the next thing we have for the room, this metal imagine sign.

We bought this piece literally years ago at a shop in New Hope, PA and it is handmade. We planned to hang it in the office when this room was the office, but the copperish line on the bottom always threw me off with the gray stripes (the sign was purchased even before we painted the stripes). But, with the addition of the taxi print, everything seems to be falling into place.

Please ignore the awful picture, but you can see how it all sort of works.

I haven’t yet decided how to hang all of the things I want to add to the room (gallery wall? clothes line? shelves? leaning on bookcases?), but that’s something to worry about later. For now, I just want a fun space full of garland (since I loved our xmas version), a play tent, fun art and one ball throwing baby.

And a hard surface for my coffee mug… 🙂

The Nursery Rug

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Posted by Rebecca, September 4th, 2012

Hello! I’m finally back with a house related post! First off, thank you all for your incredibly supportive comments, emails and tweets for my post about returning to work. I’m trying to kick my ass back into gear and get back to regular posting and project-ing. Hopefully I stick with it because it’s therapeutic 🙂

I posted once before about trying to find a non-synthetic area rug for Easton’s room and many of you gave me great suggestions. It wasn’t extremely urgent since he didn’t move much, but now the kid rolls in his sleep, rolls on the changing table and pets the wall (?) and tries to catapult himself off of our laps. In conclusion, time for rug(s)*.

I found some online that were possibilities, but I wasn’t entirely comfortable making this purchase online. Minus the shipping costs, this rug had to be pretty and functional so that Easton had a nice cushion under him. The rug had to pass the fluff test.

Mike was in Montreal this weekend so I got to soak up a few days with Easton all to myself. Minus the lack of showers, it was some much needed momma and Easton time. On Saturday, we headed to the mall to get out a bit and I browsed Pottery Barn Kids since I still have some giftcards. There I saw a sale section with a light blue 5’x8′ rug. It was the Somerville rug and it was nice, fluffy, soft and worthy of petting. It was a solid blue with a subtle diamond pattern. It was made of wool, so it met my healthy nursery requirement. SOLD!

(via Pottery Barn Kids)

It was marked down to $280ish from $399 (cheaper than listed online!) plus I had 2 giftcards so we ended up paying about $150 for it. Once we got it in the room, Easton was impressed.

By those decorating rules that most interior designers say are meant to be broken, we probably should have gone with a bigger rug. The rug mostly floats in the center of the room, though it goes underneath the front of the crib. The problem with bigger would be that it would cover almost all of the hardwoods in the room, which we just installed and we don’t want to hide completely! Oh yeah, and an 8’x10′ rug is mucho dinero. 5’x8′ it is!

I actually like the size and that it gives the crib a red carpet effect… with a blue carpet.

I also like that there is a relaxing blue on both the ceiling and the floor. When I first started on this room, I thought it would be mostly light blue and green with some navy. Then I was afraid that ‘some’ navy wasn’t going to be powerful enough so I kept adding navy. Now the room is mostly light blue and navy and I love it. The last minute chevron crib skirt I made days before Easton was born was a total game changer for me in this room.

The size of the rug also makes for a nice little walkway on either side, especially in front of the changing table.

I take my shoes off whenever I go near the carpet to make sure it stays nice and clean for the monster. Sidenote: I almost never take my shoes off as soon as I get in the house. I like having all of my shoes in our closet and if they’re on my feet? One less thing to carry up at the end of the day.

Here’s a close up of the pattern of the rug. I love that it adds another geometric print to the room. It really makes it a room he can grow into with a few tweaks.

The crib is currently sporting a breathable bumper on 3 out of 4 sides and a spaceship sheet that came with the bedding set. I prefer a light blue sheet with the chevron crib skirt, but laundry had other plans. Or rather, Easton’s bodily fluids did. The regular spaceship bumper was removed once Easton was old enough to move around at night.

Oh wait, what are those tissue paper things on the wall? Well, they’re… tissue paper. I planned out a gallergy wall weeks ago and haven’t gotten a chance to hang it. I spray painted frames, ordered photos and made a few art pieces. Both art pieces had to be redone after I didn’t like them in the frames, some frames needed an extra spray paint and my shadowbox needs to be handpainted.  So as of now the gallery wall looks like this….

Once that is all done, the nursery is almost all done. We decided to hang some hooks that we already had by the door. That should take Mike all of 10 minutes and then maybe I can squeeze in the big reveal!

One last rug shot?

Mmm so cozy now.

* playroom rug shopping is underway as well!

ps- Just literally fell asleep 3 times while sitting up and writing this…Hysterical? Yes. Pathetic? Yes that too…

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