At Last

I finally have pictures of the playroom. It shouldn't have been so hard to do; after all, the room is out there every day. What could be hard about taking some pictures of it? Well, see, when I tried to take pictures during the daytime, they all came out dark because I was shooting into the sun--and trying another direction, the flash made the wood look weird...

Okay, enough excuses. Justin took most of these pictures, by the way. If it weren't for him, you'd probably never get to see this room and you'd end up deciding I'm delusional and that it doesn't exist.

Here is the entertainment center/toy shelves that we designed together (meaning I told him what I wanted to do with the unit and he did everything else). It's made of birch which he left a natural color and just put a clear finish on it. (You can click on it to enlarge it.) The left side is Miss Pink's and the right side is Mr. Blue's.


Hey, it looks crooked--I promise it isn't in real life! We didn't want to make it go all the way to the ceiling because why tempt our kids to climb that high? As you can see, it didn't take long to fill most of the shelves. The shelves that aren't filled with toys that won't fit into the bins have decorative things in them, like books and picture frames and old toys. The room is supposed to have a "vintage toy" theme. I'm not sure a My Little Pony treehouse in Pepto-Bismol pink, or a crane in construction orange fits that theme, but hey, this room is for their toys, and they really do play with the toys more now that they're more visible and not jumbled up in their toy boxes.

You can see the vintage-y colors of the bins. He kept asking me over the phone what colors I wanted, so I told him to take me to Home Depot, where they had the exact colors I wanted in spray paint. See, I'm not high-maintenance!


The bins are made of thin plywood. I saw some like these at Target and asked my husband if he could make some. They are not very heavy and the kids can get a bin out, play with its contents, and (theoretically) put the toys back in it when they're done. It does seem to be easier to clean everything up, and they are less likely to get a lot of stuff out at one time. I don't require them to clean up before getting another bin out. A friend tried that and her daughter gave up on playing because it just wasn't fun anymore.

I know all you organized people have been doing this all along, so don't laugh at me for finally figuring out how to be organized.

How to Get Organized
Step 1. Marry a skilled carpenter.
Step 2. Wait 11 years until he has the time and extra money to build a whole room to store the family's stuff.
Step 3. Endure a few months of the house looking like this for days at a time.


4. Enjoy the new room. Here's what the bookcase next to the shelving unit looks like.

Could it look any more crooked? (But at least he took pictures, even if they are crooked.)


This is my desk. We'll get the computer out there when the U-Verse people come to hook us up next week. There is room for scrapbooking even after the computer is in place. Plus, so much storage space on top! The shelves are almost empty right now--I think I may actually have more storage space than stuff to put in it. (Which is fine with me; I hate clutter.)


Finally, this is a close-up of the stationery slots on the desk. Hopefully, they won't fill up with odds and ends that don't go anywhere else.

So that's it! We do have a futon mattress on the floor in there now, but the futon frame is yet to come so I wasn't going to make you wait until I took pictures of it to include in the tour. Because that might have taken another three months.

P.S. The walls aren't actually green. They're a warm beige, almost yellow. The color is "Believable Buff" by Sherwin Williams, I believe. The hall, kitchen, and living room are now the same color.