Papa and Gram's Room

I’m getting the itch to do some redecorating…or at least some rearranging.  I’ve said before how I usually thinking of fall and the start of school as more of New Year time of year than the actual New Year.  I think it’s also the cool temperature we've had over the past two days that are getting me motivated (in thought at least).

My target is going to be our “bonus room”.  One of the things that we like about our house when we bought is that the bonus room is actually an integrated part of the house rather than a room that was slapped up on top of the garage.  It’s a good size too and gets lots of light.  When we first moved in it was our TV room and Ted’s unofficial “man cave”.  Nine years (and two kids) later it is now our office/guest room.  Since our parents are the most frequent guests, the kids have officially dubbed it “Papa and Gram’s Room”.  When the Papas and Grams aren't staying there it becomes our office/laundry room/I don’t know where to put this so I’ll put it in there room.  Last year I decided that instead of trying to share a desk and computer time with a chronic gamer I needed my own space and bought in a small folding table to set up my laptop and scrapbooking supplies.  Since both of the kids play with the kitchen set and Katherine is not fond of having Teddy in her room, I moved it in there in hopes that it would get more play time.  See what I mean?  It’s time to get in there a change things up a bit.

This will definitely be a minor renovation primarily because I like the paint color that is in there.   That is a fancy way of saying I am not THAT motivated to get out the paint brush and all of the bedding coordinates with that paint color.  I am not interested in purchasing all new bedding right now.  SO, what’s my plan you ask?

• Move the kitchen set out.  Unfortunately that was not a good spot to entice the kids to play with it.  What is a good spot?  In our kitchen.  There are many times where I’m loathing having so many toys out everywhere but I also realize, out of sight, out of mind in terms of those toys getting played with by the kids.  So in the spirit of “you only have little kids once”, I moved the little stove, fridge and pantry down to our kitchen.  It’s already a hit.


• Rearrange the furniture.  We've had the same arrangement since we moved the guest bed in there.  While it worked at the time with addition of a second “desk”, things look kind of strange in the current arrangement.  So I’m thinking of moving the bed to the opposite wall, moving my desk in front of the front window…and then…I’m still thinking about it but we definitely need a new layout.  Of course a new furniture layout means some of the pictures will probably get rearranged as well…


• New curtains.  Time for the current ones to go.  Nuff said.


• New desks.  While the folding table is functional, it’s kind of, well, ugly.  Does not do much for the ambiance in there. And I’m using the big wicker chair which is not supportive to getting some work done.   Ted’s desk if falling apart…literally.  We know that one day the bottom is just going to cave in on itself.  This may take a while, we've actually been looking for new desks for a while and not found anything that we’re enthralled with, either because of looks or because of size.


• A headboard.  Somehow we never got around to buying a headboard or foot board or anything for that bed.  So it’s just a mattress set on a frame.  I've started scouring craigslist to see if I can find something.  A few contenders, lots of options.  But let me say this…some people sure have awful taste when it comes to furniture.  There were a few posts I opened and thought good luck with getting rid of that.  Then again, they bought it so someone else probably will too.

To get things rolling, here are some before picks.  I had already moved two of the three pieces of the kitchen set out but you can see what the place normally looks like on non guest weeks.  I’ll post pics along the way because I’m thinking this will be done incrementally rather than all at once.