Side note: I started this post 2 months ago and actually forgot that I was going to post about the girls sharing a room until I read my friend, Kelly's, blog. Thanks Kelly for the reminder to get these out!!
Jason and I thought that it would be a fun experience for the girls to room together and when I found out I was pregnant I jumped at the chance to redecorate almost all of the upstairs. Here was the old breakdown of the 4 bedrooms:
1) Master Bedroom
2) Ella's room
3) Laney's room shared with the queen guest bed
4) Jason's office
There were so many different combinations we thought of (moving Laney to the office and Jason's office down to the basement, the girls room together, the baby moves to the office, etc). I love organizing so this was right up my ally.
Back in February, Jason got motivated to rearrange the rooms and you know how it is ladies, you don't stop a guy who is motivated to do something off your "to do" list. So we decided to have the girls take over Laney's room/guest room (it's the biggest). Jason's old office became the new guest room and play room, Jason's office is now in the basement and Ella's old room is Matthew's room. Phew, what a project!
The first night the girls fell asleep about 7PM, up at 6:30 (too early but still, we were happy). The second night was a total disaster (I won't go into details but it lead to me almost falling asleep in church). Monday night was AWESOME (in bed by 6:30 and up at 6:30) and Tuesday night, in bed by 7:00 and up at 7AM. We are getting there and although it's a work in progress I love the idea of siblings sharing a room when they are younger...it's supposed to foster closer relationships :)
Our recent update: what works best now is putting Laney down between 6:30 and 7:00 and then bringing Ella in about 7:30 so that Laney can calm down before Ella comes in. Laney can be quite an instigator in keeping both of the girls up.
Their polka dot room
This picture is at a weird angle, but I swear the letters are level :)
On the other side of the room is this pic.
I bought a 20 x 30 printed picture, then put it on a foam board.
I love this little guy.
He springs up and down.
I also had to take a pic of the new guest room, which was Jason's old office. Notice the glow in the dark carpet. No, that was not a typo. The family who owned the house previously had two boys in this room and the carpet was a fun accent. When Jason took over the room for his office we decided this could be "his room/his man cave/his place" so I didn't care about the decorating as I could just shut the door :) But now that we will have guests in there, I am not sure they will appreciate the glow in the dark affect. But I just had to put a pic of the carpet before it goes away.
Although I posted the artwork in Matthew's room, I thought I would show how the whole room turned out. It is exactly what Jason and I wanted (simple, no theme, yet personal touches from our family) and I honestly couldn't be happier about how it turned out.
Here is our finished project!
I couldn't find a valence that I liked, so we took the baby
comforter that matches the crib dust ruffle and with
help from my mother-in-law (thanks Dean!!), made it into a valence.
The dust ruffle is a blue and brown stripe which coordinates with the valence.
The bumper is a plain brown, breathable bumper.
I had not heard of these bumpers when I had the girls but it is
more of a mesh fabric so there is less risk of the baby rolling into it
and having a tough time breathing.
Usually we just took the girls' bumpers down once they
started rolling over, but this bumper can stay up longer.
This rocking chair was the one my parents used for my sister
and me. When I found out I was pregnant with Ella,
my mom had a painter come and repaint it in an array of colors.
Although there is still a lot of pink on it, I think it looks
great in his room (ok, and it would be too much work for me
to sand down the arms and repaint brown)...that's the real story.
This is on the back of the chair; it's so special to us!
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