October 3, 2013

The Play Room Must Go!

And so we find ourselves yet again in my guest room-slash-playroom. That room that rarely houses guests, and rarely gets "played" in by my kids (unless you count Minecraft, on the computer).

I first wrote about cleaning it up, here in this post.
Above is what it looked like all freshly purged of (that round) of kids toys, back when we still used the small orange Ikea futon for guests.

And then I showed you how we removed the aging futon and put our too-soft for the master bedroom, but fine-for-guests mattress into the room, earlier this year in this post.
Which as you can see, hogs up most of the space in this small room. (Although we did finally get the box springs up off the floor with some bed rails.)

We have 4 bedrooms upstairs in our house, which works perfectly for us: the master, one for the girl, one for the boy, and an office for the Husband, who works from home and is a bit of a mad-scientist/techie geek (i.e., his office is a mess of computers and parts and wires and mother boards and isn't fit for guest traffic).

And then we have this funny little angled room downstairs, right by the front door, and one of the first things you see when you come into our home.
I've been to other houses in our neighborhood with our same floor plan, and the builder had intended for this to be an open "den" small office area.  The wall that you see below, with the map, is usually opened up as a great big open window, often with plantation shutters.
But the family who lived here before us had more kids, and so they closed up the open window (in a rather rough job) to use this as their eldest girl's bedroom. They also framed out the doorway and installed double-doors, as again the original intent was for this "den" area to be open. 

People!! I am so OVER this room, and the way is does, or does NOT function in my house. 

I am taking on the challenge of emptying out most of the toys and furniture, and restoring it to function primarily as a guest room. I'll continue to store some games and books in the Expedit system, but I no longer see it as a "play room." I'm keeping the kids computer in here, too, as this is where they play Minecraft and noodle on the shared computer -- but its not where they do homework.

And I wanna get all this  done by the end of the month, which is why I'm joining up with the blog "Calling It Home's"  One Room Challenge Linking Party during the month of October.

Here's what I'm getting rid of:
 Both of these big pieces, the Ikea "rustic" wardrobe, and the Ikea "secretary" type desk, are going.  The wardrobe is full of games and craft supplies, with a rail to hang guest's clothes.  The desk drawers (there are 4) are full of memories and journals and innumerable broken pens, receipts and ticket stubs.

This wall o' fun also needs to get dealt with: 
Lily has agreed to sell her Fisher Price dollhouse, so that's going, too. 

I'm also changing out the pale green paint and most of the artwork. I would LOVE to explore the idea of bashing out that faux-window seat. It has a bullnose lip, is too narrow to actually serve as a window seat, and is totally useless, except to look "decorative." And eat up precious space.

In the meantime, if you're new here from the link party, I'd hate for you to think my whole house is also just as cluttered and awkward and uninspired. So here's a recent DIY project I completed with the Malm dresser in our entryway:
 Yay for Overlays! Yay for gold spray paint!
Come back week, and I'll share my inspiration photos of what I'd like the new guest room to feel like, plus a couple of fun pillows that I've already bought for the bed.  
 In the meantime, it's cleaning and purging over here (oh, and Halloween decor for the rest of the house.)

The fun never ends.


3 comments :

  1. You have a great space to work with. Does your husband help you with computer/blogging issues? That would be great to have on hand. I love your O'verlays! Thanks for joining in, this will be fun.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thanks, Linda! Yes, my husband can help when I get myself into a corner with blogging issues, although usually I'm on my own. (And neither of us have graphic design talent, as you can see; ).

      Delete
  2. Though I miss when my kids were little, I don't miss all the toys. It's sort of nice when they get to that age when those things start to fade out. Looking forward to seeing how you transform this room.

    ReplyDelete

Thanks for commenting! :)

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...
 
Blogger Template by Designer Blogs