Imagination Station! Kids Play Room

 

 

Submitted By: Pretend Fancy

Well it would be an understatement to say that these past few weeks (months) have been stressful. But, I would like to think we are starting to turn a corner. John has been out of the hospital since last Friday (or was it Saturday? I honestly can’t remember ha!) and he has been on a soft foods/liquid diet. He has been doing good.

Okay, so that’s the health update. We are so grateful to be getting John back to his old self, because I have felt like a single mom these past few weeks and I never want to go back.

So what else have I been up to you say?

Oh not much. I just decided to re-do our playroom. Why? Well, because, um, mental health reasons. I needed something to take my mind off of stuff. A project does that. Plus, I had some ideas for better storage for Maddy’s toys. Before we had one of those ikea toy storage units. It was just too hard for Maddy to dig through the big bins and find what she was looking for, so she just wouldn’t play with the stuff in them.

the ikea bin of chaos

Here are a few before pictures (really before, like a few from before we even painted the room green and did the board and batten treatment).

Trying to decide on the colors

 

The room before paint. shudder with me folks

 

Still a before picture, but at least we had it painted by this point

 

BEFORE photo. This was the point that our playroom was at, but it just wasn’t being used as much as I was hoping, and it still looked blah to me. You know me, I like some Wow factor. Or crazy factor as John likes to call it. eh, tomato, tomahto. 🙂

So, in order to not spend too much out of pocket money, I decided to sell some stuff (like the ikea toy storage) on craigslist in order to payroll the makeover. I tried to do things pretty cheaply in this room. Lots of stuff I already had. Let’s look at the abundance of photos I took. You knew they were coming.

A couple of walmart white boards (super cheap) to hang drying art. Maddy loves to paint so this was something I wanted to add for a long time. It took me a while to figure out what I wanted to do. I didn’t want something with push pins for obvious reasons. Thank goodness for magnets. I got some that looked just like push pins because it appealed to my dumb sense of humor.

 

This is how Maddy draws people these days. Our house is literally covered in these people. So cute.

 

I told John my dream was to make a mini childrens museum in our playroom. I think he thought I was kidding….behold the mailbox I made him mount on our wall. Another cheap walmart purchase.

For the pesky huge toys that won’t fit on shelves, enter the large plastic bucket hidden behind the door.

Wahoo!!! I thought about putting the usual PLAY or FUN or AREN’T WE SO PRECIOUS FOR PUTTING LETTERS ON OUR WALL, but Wahoo all capitalized like that seemed so sarcastic and yet fun that it was perfect. I gotta get my kicks where I can people.

I originally bought a bunch of ugly bins at Walmart and they cost more than the cheap walmart bookshelves and I was annoyed. So I went onto Target.com and found these bins which were not only cheaper but cuter and fit more stuff. Score and double score. I wasn’t sure about the colors, but in the end I like ’em. Oh, and Grant likes to dump the toys off the bottom shelves, so we put stuff down there that is for him. It’s adorable.

Oh canisters of art supplies. How you make my little heart sing.

Goodwill globe stolen from Maddy’s room.

Getting fancy with the angles.

Lincoln Log Preserves. Yummmm.

My craigslist chair find. Don’t laugh, I’m going to try to slipcover it (really really simplistic slipcover….) John saw it and called it “chintzy.” I’ll chintzy you mister.

Now we move on to my favorite parts of the room. Welcome to Grant’s Groceries (maddy helped paint this. cute)

I got that white bin at D.I. five million years ago and always intended to use it for this very purpose. It only took me five million years to paint over it’s dark green crackle paint and use it.

This has been used all over the house too. It landed here for now.

Oh, this makes my little heart so happy.

 

Yes, we did have to make a rule about how many gumballs Maddy could eat. No, she hasn’t followed that rule at all.

I found this little basket at Goodwill and was SO excited. I knew just where it was going. Sunflowers from the dollar store of course. Do people buy fake flowers anywhere else?? (or fake grapes for that matter….)

We used her ikea table as her register area and her post office headquarters.

Blue mailbox was a consignment store find. Postal scale was a Goodwill find.

 

Want to come into Madeline’s Cafe? Funny thing? I used to go to a restaurant with my friend Emily called Le Madeleines for lunch quite a bit. So this sign kinda reminds me of that. This thing was actually a mirror and I was going to use it to do an area of dress up for Maddy and then it broke. So I improvised and it is now a very simple sign.

It started off being gold, but then I dry-brushed it with a sort of verdigris color paint. Muy bueno.

Fake LED candle (you guessed it) dollar store. Glass vase bottle Goodwill. I loved the tiny clipboard when I found it. It has already been used to take orders.

I’m sorry, not to get off topic here, but I kinda hate the name Pinkalicious. The books are cute, but it sounds like some sort of Britney Spears song. Something like,  Pinkalicious you’re delicious….ugh, see what I mean????

Makes me want to sit down at a bistro and order a macaroon. Or club sandwich.

 

Oh yeah, did I mention I made a STINKING AWESOME canopy all by my little dang self???? Oh, offhandedly, yeah I did.

Fabric was on super Columbus Day sale. Maddy loves it.

 

I didn’t sew it, so the edges are raw. But my friends it is made from outdoor fabric so it’s like canvas and not likely to unravel. Besides…um, this blog is called pretend fancy for a reason, remember?

I made it using a wrapping paper tube and fishing wire

cut little holes into the top and wired the fishing line through

and hung it to a hook on the ceiling. It took some time, but I love how it turned out. I’m sure you couldn’t tell.

 

 

Table in the middle of the room for art projects/Mom sewing projects.

 

 

You probably remember this bed from the last time I made over the playroom. It stayed the same because it’s awesome.

Then I snuck up and took pictures while it was in use. The girls loved it.

 

 

There you go folks. And I bet I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking, “hmm, this is all well and good, but wasn’t she redoing her kitchen, what happened to that?” To which I answer it is coming. The floor is finished (thanks to a craigslist trade we got a professional to come and finish them for us in trade for a family photoshoot, awesome), but we need to put back up the shoe molding. After that she’s all yours. And bytheway, I love it. But not as much as I love a healthy husband.