My Blog Inspired Playroom Makeover

Well...


Back in the days of summer, long before the onset of pregnancy debilitation, I was rather productive!


After looking at so many fun decorating ideas on blog sites, I decided to give my playroom a blog-inspired makeover! This translated into many weeks of dipping my fingers in modge podge and cutting up millions of pieces of scrapbook paper... all in an attempt to get that darling "Pottery Barn Playroom" I've always dreamed about... without the Pottery Barn price tag!


I thought I'd share the before and after makeover pictures because I am really happy with how it turned out!

This is a "Before" Shot

I had moved an armoir into the playroom so the movie-watching could be contained in that room, and I had purchased the white shelves and toy baskets. That's all that I had done. I was listening to the advice of friends who have many children and said...

"Don't spend any money on the playroom. The kids will just destroy it!"

I just couldn't listen any longer...

the unfinished look of the playroom was driving me NUTS!

And this is an "After" Shot of approximately the same area of the room!

Ahhh! So much better!

I got those cute oversized metal flowers at Hobby Lobby when they were closing out their gardening stuff... they look so cute and cheery atop the armoir!

"Before" shot of the Window Wall

(in terribly bad lighting!)

"After Shot" of the "Window Wall"


The walls were already painted a shade of yellow. I found two fabrics for the curtains that had lots of bright colors... both boy and girl colors! That was the inspiration for the rest of the room... lots of fun, bright colors!

As I mentioned, I already had the shelves. But given their short stature, I felt like I needed something to hang above them.


So I created (with more modge podge & scrapbook paper!) these canvas prints that were very inexpensive and large enough to fill the space. I ended up making an "N" in the middle of the blue/orange canvas on the "boy side" for Noah's toys and an "E" in the middle of the pink/green canvas on the "girl side" for Emily's toys.


Don't ask me what I'll do now that I'm going to have more than just an "N" and an "E"!
Poor 3rd child... I'll have to find a "side" for him/her too!


Here is a closer shot of the "wall art" I created!

I used a blank canvas and "modge podged" scrapbook paper to it.

The middle portion is made out of an 8*10 frame. I took the glass out, modge podged a patchwork on a cardboard frame matte, spray painted the letters, hot glued it all together, hung it from the ribbon, and got the three dimensional finish to the "wall art"!

A look at the "E" girl side of the wall!

This a "Before" shot of the back wall.

My #1 irritation about this room has always been the eye sore (i.e. fuse box) in the semi-center of that wall! It had to be covered up... that was my main goal!

And here is the "After" Shot!

The Art Wall

Inspired by my need to cover up that ugly box, I decided to turn the entire wall into an "Art Wall" filled with bulletin boards for hanging priceless preschool artwork and marker boards adhered to the walls for creativity. We used to have several easels with marker boards, but they took up so much space. So I decided to use marker boards on the wall instead. They are easily accessible (in fact, a little too accessible for a certain almost 2 year old!) and take up no space!

I love how it turned out! And it's freed up a lot of clutter on my refrigerator too!

A close up of the letters (more on those later) and the bulletin boards.

I painstakingly covered the wood frames with scrapbook paper and modge podge and the cut out the circles for accents and used modge podge (surprise!) to adhere them to the corkboard.

I had 2 of these star "quilt holders" that I was not using anymore, so I decided to use them as clips to hold the little buckets on each side of the marker board.

What's inside the buckets?

Well, currently NOTHING! They were intended to hold the dry-erase markers and erasers, but given a little "incident" involving that same almost 2 year old, they no longer reside there! Maybe someday!

This is a "Before" shot of an old narrow wooden table that I had. I purchased it for an entry way at a raw wood store when Vance and I were living in an apartment while he was in graduate school. I was about to put it in a garage sale, when a blog inspired me to turn it into something else...

An Art Table!

I sawed off the legs to make it a kid -friendly height, spray painted it and you guessed it...

modge podged the circles to the top for decoration!

(Emily already ripped one of those "decorations" off! What was it my friends told me about kids destroying playrooms?!)

The two little chairs were my mom's from when she was a little girl. They resided in her storage room until we dug them up and spray painted them to look new!

(New, until that same little almost 2 year old took a crayon and added her own "decoration" to the "new" chairs... sigh!)

A "Before" shot of the armoir wall

The "After" shot of the same wall!

Ahhh! So much more FUN!

I love having the armoir in the playroom because it is the perfect spot for housing all the kid DVD's, but I hated how I had two unused little corners on either side of the armoir.

So, with the help of another little table that was in the garage sale stack, some more modge podge, scrapbook paper, a cutesy lamp from Hobby Lobby, and Emily's comfy armchair....

We now having a sweet little Reading Corner!

A close up of the letters!

These turned out so cute, but almost made me crazy! They are three dimensional cardboard letters that you get at Hobby Lobby... very cheap! I cut strips of scrapbook paper to wrap them top to bottom and side to side... with modge podge!

It took for-E-V-E-R!

My fingernails had modge podge permanently adhered underneath them for weeks! They turned out really cute though and if you don't count your time investment, they were super cheap!

I thought the armoir needed a bit of jazzing up, so I made the little ribbon accents to go around all of the door knobs.

I turned the other side of the armoir into a little dress up corner for Emily. There are hooks beneath the "PLAY" lettering to hold dress up clothes, purses, jewelry etc.

This is the back wall of the playroom that is still unfinished.

I'm waiting to finish it for a Christmas morning surprise...

I'm planning to make it into a wall that houses a wooden kitchen/store set. I'll make more lettering and signs to match (if I can talk myself into more modge podge!) the other lettering in the room!

And just in case you were wondering...

The answer is NO!

It rarely looks like this!

Most days, it looks like this...

And this...

And this...

And after the very first time we had a play date party in the playroom and Emily decided to color the walls and marker boards with a permanent purple glitter pen, I was asking myself why I didn't listen to those friends of mine!

But even though I had to spend several hours cleaning the carpet, walls, and marker boards with rubbing alcohol, I'm still glad I decided to do it!

It is so much happier and fun and the kids play in there ALL the time!

Hope you enjoyed!