Tween Ahead

I've been silently at work on a project for awhile.  Remember my craft room?  The one where I do all my sewing for the shops that I sell kids stuff in...?  It was never truly finished, but looked a bit like this:

Well, I've decided to give it up.  I'm doing a lot less sewing these days and don't feel that I need to take up an entire room with all of my stuff.  So I pared down.  Gave away lots of things.  Threw out the excess junk.  

My boys are getting bigger, and are starting to show signs of needing their own space.  They currently share a room, but the younger one just can't seem to leave the older one alone.  Ever.  So I determined that it is time for this room to go back to being a bedroom.  He won't be ready for it for awhile now, but that's ok because it still isn't quite ready for him.  And I'm going to let him make the transition on his own timeline.  But he will be 10 this winter (10!) and probably deserves his own space.

I first took apart my sewing/craft table and reused the top along with some cabinets found at the ReStore to create a corner desk in there for him.  I kept the tall cabinet that once housed my fabric stash because it actually works well with the desk, and I didn't know how to get it out of that room.  :)

I painted, and then for awhile, I left it like this.  Summer came and I was busy.  I still used it as a sewing room.  Still had all my supplies in there.  Found a cute/cheap rug at Ikea.  And an awesome secondhand pink desk chair which got an immediate makeover, obviously.   

I was also on a long search for a storage bed.  This is a small room.  So it needs all the storage help it can get.  I debated making one, but ended up finding this one for a steal at Sal's.  I had both kids with me, but couldn't pass up the deal and so ended up calling Jay to come get them so I could jam this thing into my car.  The headboard was reading a bit girly, so I took it off and made a new, more square one out of some leftover plywood I had lying around in the basement.

I decided, after debating for many, many years, to paint the floor.  Talked about that back in 2010.   And I think it was the right option.  I let my son pick the color (within reason),got it matched to porch paint, and it has held up really well over the last few months.  And then all that was left was accessorizing.  I reused a few things that we already had.  Recovered the cork board that was in my craft room with a burlap fabric and brass tacks.  Painted over my sister's wedding seating chart with chalkboard paint.  Got some sports do-dads and a place for all the hats.  Moved in all of his various trophies.  Found some red bins on clearance for the tall cabinet because no one want to see boys toys or underwear.  I also yanked out the old closet system and revamped it for better usage.  And now all it needs is a mattress.  I put our air mattress there for now, and my son already reads in there every day.  

What do you think?  Good space for an almost tween boy?  Aaaghh.  I can't believe he's going to be 10!

And don't you worry, my sewing stuff has found itself a new area.  But that's a post for another day!

Closet Wars

My boys share a room.  They love it that way and so do I.  But they also share a closet.  And as they grow bigger and bigger, they are just constantly in each other's way trying to get something in and/or out of the closet.  It's one of those standard sliding double door dealies where only one person can actually be "on their side" at a time.  My husband and I have the same closet, but luckily our schedules are off enough that we don't frequently end up getting dressed simultaneously.  But the boys do.   Which has started to result in closet wars.  And a huge mess.  On Friday I reached my breaking point with this closet.  I needed a project.  And I had a Home Depot gift card burning a hole in my pocket.

mess + doors = closet wars

In order to come up with a new plan, I addressed all of the problems and decided what the project would entail.

This closet was obviously not designed for children.  One of the hanging bars was so high that no one could reach it.  So I would have to come in to get a sweatshirt down etc.  And I was sick of that.  So the new arrangement needed to have all reachable items.  They keep most of their regular t-shirts and sweatpants (99.9% of a boy's daily wear) folded in bins where they can reach.  But the bins were getting too small.  Or perhaps the clothing is getting too big??  So the new closet must have bigger bins.  The doors were obviously a huge part of this problem, so bye bye doors.  And lastly, the closet had to look nice (mostly because of the whole no-doors thing).

bins of overflowing boy garb                        hanging bar for 6' man

Now as you can see, when I originally ripped out their old green carpet years ago, I got a little lazy and stopped at the edge of the closet.  In order to get the carpet out from there, I would have had to take out the whole closet system and at that time I just wasn't doing it.  So that became issue number one.  Luckily I had just enough of the floor boards left in the basement to do the closet.  I had to run them the other way and add in a transition strip, but I'm ok with that.

Carpet, doors, and old wire system out - So much better already!

Of course, whenever I start a project, it's like opening a can of worms.  You know those walls were so dingy that we had to paint them, right?  I gave the boys the choice of three colors of paint that we had enough of in the basement.  They chose bright green.  And I put them to work.

This lasted all of about 5 minutes.

I decided to install one bar per side (at an acceptable height, of course) and several shelves since most of their stuff doesn't hang anyway.  I left the floor open because they have some rolling bins of toys that they like to stash down there.

Ahhhhh... clean and new.  It's so tempting to just leave it this way.

With all of their clothes and toys back in.  I only got rid of a couple of smaller toy bins.  Everything else is back in here.  Amazing difference, no?

They even have their own hamper now.  Up until this point they were required to walk across the hall to our room to deposit dirty clothes in a hamper.  It was starting to become a problem.  They were having a rough time making it the whole 3 feet away and I have been finding dirty clothes deposited everywhere from on their floor to under their playroom couch (which, by the way, is farther from their room than my hamper).

We shall see how neat this remains.  I feel like I should be required to post a "reality" picture in a few weeks.  But even in a bit of time, I'm sure it will be better than the state of the previous arrangement!