A while back I posted a poll about which of two rooms–one upstairs and tiny, the other downstairs and bigger–should eventually become our bedroom. The results were overwhelmingly in favor (84% to be exact) of the larger downstairs room that is currently our playroom/office/junk room. I hemmed and hawed, but ultimately I decided that in the short term (the next 6 or 7 years) we’re going to buck the crowd and use the upstairs room. Before we had Opal I didn’t realize that kids don’t spend time in their bedrooms. Now it seems so obvious–of course they want to be a part of the action. Plus Opal is still too little to go up and down the stairs without supervision, and having the playroom downstairs also helps to curb the spread of toys in the living room. It also means we can cook or fold laundry while she plays nearby and still carry on a conversation with her and pop in to be part of whatever game or story she’s come up with.
Here is what the room looks like these days:
It’s a generously sized room, but it’s serving too many purposes at once right now. I want it to be less of a dumping ground, and more of a dedicated play space. I’m a huge fan of Jenny Komenda of Little Green Notebook (seriously, she’s AMAZING) and the playroom that she created for her girls is so bright and happy:
I love that it’s bright and colorful, not theme-y, and leaves tons of space for imagination. So I thought that I’d try to create something similar.
Opal loves to read and having a comfortable spot to curl up with her in the playroom would be great. My plan this weekend was to move my old red chaise in here–it would be perfect!
In its current position the chaise is cramped and not very inviting. It’s awkwardly butted against the Broyhill Brasilia credenza that I recently refinished (which I would love to show you, but until I can get the chaise out of here the credenza is stuck in an unappealingly off-center position in the room).
I love the vibrant yellow curtains in Jenny Komenda’s playroom. I found these cheery ones from ModCloth and I made a quick mood board to get a sense of how they’d look with the red chaise. I think it would be really cheerful!
Okay so this last one isn’t similar at all to our captain’s bed, but I’m in love with the lacquered yellow paint, and now I’m inspired to paint our version a similar sunny hue (apparently I’m really determined to bring a lot of yellow into this room!). And maybe you noticed that all of the previous inspiration images are the same daybed–I’m fairly certain it is from Ikea. Ours was built by a handy neighbor decades ago, but it is really similar including the three drawers on the bottom. Since it’s already in two pieces it will (fingers crossed) fit through the door, and Chester thinks that he’ll be able to reattach the two halves.
So I’m reimagining the playroom now along these lines:
My image editing skills are nonexistent so you’ll have to use your imagination for the lacquered yellow daybed–hopefully the yellow pillows on the bed trick the eye at least a little. The floral curtains are actually a shower curtain–you know what’s super expensive? Curtains. You know what’s not super expensive? Shower curtains. I’m hoping that with one cut down the middle and a little hemming no one will know the difference.
It’s worth it, but this charming old house definitely comes with the occasional frustration! Anybody else out there been stymied by the quirks of an old house lately?