The Big Girl Room
29th July 2008
There’s nothing like only two available bedrooms and a burgeoning belly to ignite the fear of time in home organizing and decorating.
Translation = holy shit this new kid is coming, like, soon, so we’d better get the first kid into her permanent room so the baby has a place to sleep after we move her out of our en suite bathroom.
(I’m kidding about the bathroom part. Sort of.)
Getting Lucy’s new room ready was easier said then done, because, remember, we moved into The House That Wallpaper Built. Which means Lucy’s room looked like this:
Three cotton candy pink walls with a Victorian frou-frou border of lace and teddy bears and pearls, and one full wall of creeping vines — under which lurked several shades of blue. Also, horribly banged-up baseboards and a beat-up closet (we think the previous owners kept some secret third child locked-up in there). Luckily the walls themselves were in pretty good shape, so there wasn’t much filling and sanding.
It took us weeks to pull it all together, but now Lucy has one of the coolest rooms in the house:
We knew from the start we wanted something funky on one wall, and finally settled on vinyl wall stickers called DottiLicious by Wall Candy Arts. They’re non-toxic and re-positionable — even reusable for years after. We especially loved that the design is fun for Lucy now — she calls them her polka dots — but will grow with her. We plan to do something similar for the baby’s room.
Notes on the bed: Yes, we’re purposely missing a top sheet and quilt because our daughter refuses to sleep with anything on her. She has two special knitted blankets instead, that lay on either side of her when she sleeps. As for the daybed (which Lucy picked out from Ikea) with the opening facing the wall? THAT brilliant idea was born in a group discussion at Durham Mom’s Night Out. So now Lucy has all the space of a big girl bed, but is essentially in a giant crib. Which means she can’t get out ’cause she’s not a climber. Which means Mummy and Daddy love it.
(I figure we’ll keep it that way until she’s 18 and ready for post-secondary school.)
Also, Lucy adores the little pink stuffed rocking chair in the corner — a gift from her Uncle Ted and Auntie Shannon — where she sits and reads books. I’ve been waiting almost two years to find the perfect spot for that chair, and when I placed it in that corner, the sky burst forth with light and angels started singing.
The clutter- and space-saving toy bucket Santa brought her, along with a beautiful quilted wall hanging my sister made (Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds — get it?!).
Wire and brackets from Ikea for hanging art and photos.
Both this dresser and the nightstand were mine growing up. It’s amazing the longevity of solid-wood furniture, and what a fresh coat of white paint can do. Many thanks to my parents for holding on to these, and so willingly donating them to us. I am, however, embarrassed to admit that the empty frame is STILL needing photos from Lucy’s first birthday…
Missing from the photos is the window. We’re waiting until things aren’t as tightly budgeted to get a good white wooden blind and have some funky pink curtains made. Until then, the room is rather…ghetto with a Dominican Republic beach towel pinned up with pink clothespins.
Now, with just over 12 weeks until the baby is due, we move on to the nursery. And dream of the day we’ll have enough time (haha!) to de-wallpaper our own room and turn it into the beach oasis we’ve planned.
Hey! Maybe we can re-use the Dominican towel!
Possibly related posts:
Oh wow, the dots are super gorgeous. What a fabulous pattern you guys did with them.
What an awesome room Lucy has! I think that I want to be a little girl again so I can play in there. Great job guys and I can not wait to see the pictures of the nursery.
Amazing ! I love love love love it
I just showed Dave the day-bed idea .. thats is great !
i cant go there yet .. not yet
Those dots are so great — and so perfectly applied! The whole room is just fabulous.
Great idea on the bed, I might borrow it for Cait. Luckily she hasn’t figured out how to crawl out of the crib yet, it’s not on it’s lowest setting either. Lexy crawled out when she was 18 months old and landed flat on her face – hopefully Cait won’t follow suit …
The room looks wonderful, Lucy must be so pleased to have her “big girl room”.
Sounds like your nesting time has started! Enjoy!
we almost did that with mya too, but then toddler beds were on sale, and we actually never had a problem with her getting out of bed… pleasantly surprised were we…. the room looks great!!!! How does she like her big girl room? We are going to transition mya in a few months…
Lucy loves all the extra space, and was so ready to move. We spent, well, a year, telling her how she’d eventually get that room, so she was well aware it was coming and excited.
We thought about a toddler bed, but honestly, I didn’t want another piece of furniture to deal with and transition Lucy in and out of. The frame, spring mattress and slats were around $300, and will last her until she moves out. And then will be a guest bed.
Are you feeling any pangs of sadness? I did when it was time to transition I into his big boy’s room. Thought I’d share a good source – when I was pickikng out artwork for I’s room I found it really hard to find variety. I went to art.com where I ordered some inexpensive prints of these colourful vehicles – an airplane, car, train, dump truck, all done by the same artist.
I think I ended up paying about sixty dollars for five prints. Then I just picked up some el cheapo frames from Wally-world and voila – had some wonderful inexpensive prints for his room. Warning though – they have thousands of prints and it is so easy to kill time on that website. They even have a section of children’s artwork.
Love, Love, Love what you did with Lucy’s room. Perfect for a girl of her age on up to those teen years.
Looking forward to seeing the nursery. Hard to believe only 12 more weeks! EEK!
That looks awesome! And the decor will grow with her. Want to decorate my new house? (When I find one, that is…)
K.
[...] a) our dog, with his jangling chain inside a locked kennel, or b) our daughter, who is essentially caged in her bed, and I guarantee would yell, “Bye Mama! Bye Dat! See you ‘gain soon!” as she left [...]
This s a super cool room. Hopefully soon my daughter will have a big girl room too.
I love the wall decals!!
[...] from Wallies, and are vinyl, reusable sticker-like things very similar to the Wall Candy dots in Lucy’s room. It was Eric’s brilliant idea to have them flying out the window. My Mom is making a lamp, [...]
[...] was when we went upstairs shortly before noon to show off Lucy and Alice’s rooms that I noticed something odd. There was a tightening from across my lower [...]