Kids Bedroom Makeover- Woodland Creatures

The finished kids room. After
With a new baby on the way, and only two kids rooms upstairs our 4 year old girl and 2 year old boy needed to share a room. This meant moving Sam to a big boy bed, getting them to sleep in the same room, and combining what I had of the two rooms into one common gender neutral theme.

Kate's room before . It had actually changed a lot from this photo of the nursery we brought her home too in 2007- well it had a dresser and a daybed instead of the crib. But the decor and bedding were still the same.

Samuel's nursery. It had actually changed quite a bit too since this photo. But the idea is the same except we had added a bunch of Dr. Suess stuff. I am sad now that we didn't photograph the children's bedrooms more before we took them apart.
I came up with making the room into a woodland creature sort of room based on trying to use things we already had and not wanting to paint.
The kids bedding was down in the guestroom and it was brown and white polka dots. The walls in the room were white and green. I knew we had a wide collection of stuffed animals and rocks around. Sounds like a forest to me.
We started off with taking the bunk beds that were downstairs in the guest room and painting them with some paint left over from the basement banister. It took us several nights to get all the nooks and corners painted, but in the end they look shiny and new..ish.
Reading corner. One of the best things about the new room is that there are no toys in it. That means that even on its worst day, the room only takes a few minutes to clean. They do have a large selection of books in the bookshelf that I refinished last year. As well as an ottoman that was in Sam's room that they use to reach the top books.
I like that the room is colorful. Brown, green, red and a dark turquoise.
Kate's bed and shelf. That gnome was one of the splurge purchases of the room. At all of seven dollars. But I think it fits well
Sam's bed and shelf.
Dresser topped with more stuffed woodland creatures, woodland creature print and plant. Sam has really taken to owls since Dad put the one outside to scare off the birds. All the prints I got off google images and just printed them on my home computer. They look great considering. Then I spray painted a bunch of dollar store frames dark turquoise with some spray paint I had from another project.
One of the biggest tasks for the room was combining two children into one closet and one dresser. Obviously things aren't perfect, but it is in and somewhat organized. All the baskets are from Sam's former nursery.
Each kid has a personalized woodland alphabet above their bed. I'm getting pretty good at making whatever I want on photoshop, including art I see other people have made.
Each kid has a shelf. I filled them with their memory boxes, a woodland creature picture, special books, blocks, jars of pinecones and rocks, and stuffed animals.

Cost breakdown.
Blue Curtains- $19.99 at Ikea
Wood underbed Storage boxes- $9.99 each
6 frames from Dollar Store- $6
One gnome- $6.99
Shelf from Ikea- $11.00

Total $63.96

And a good third of that is just in storage boxes not decor.

I'm really pleased at how the room came together just by shopping our house and leftover paint supply.
I'm even more pleased that Sam is now a big boy who sleeps in his bed all by himself for night and naps without complaint. He never gets out. Just yesterday we heard him awake and talking almost an hour later after we had put him in bed, but he never comes out because we threaten him with having to go sleep back in his crib. He doesn't want that. He loves getting to share a room with his sister. Bonus his big sister wasn't sad one bit to give up her pink girly room to share a big kids room with her brother. The two of them are best friends and love their new room.

On to another new nursery.
Yup my 3rd to create in four years.
We are crazy.

Does Laundry Depress You?

Laundry sure had me depressed for a while.
It just seemed never ending.
Two messy toddlers, and a busy spouse left all the laundry up to me alone.
Which was about 2 loads of laundry a day.
I would try to get the two loads washed, dried, folded and hung each day.

I couldn't keep up.

Every time I went into my laundry room I felt like a failure.

I needed a new PLAN. Because what I was doing was not working.

So this month I tried something new.

It goes along well with our families goal to have the SUMMER OF FUN this year
Seeing as how this is the 1st summer in four years I am not pregnant or nursing a three month old child we have been determined to live it up.

Thus began "CHORE MONDAY"

The new plan is just what is sounds like.
I do all the chores on Monday.
It makes for a busy day, but then the rest of the week is free.

The best part it.
I don't get depressed or feel like a failure when I look at a laundry room full of laundry.
Because I know I have chosen to leave it not just failed to do it.

Here is our Monday schedule.
Yes it seems like a lot and my children are partially ignored for the majority of the morning-
but this enables me to spend more time having fun with them all week.
Plus one of them is napping for two hours of the morning anyways and the other is an excellent helper.

8:00 am- head to grocery store/ bank/post office.

8:45 am- put groceries away, quick fridge clean out.

9:00 am- clean up everything off the kids bedroom floors

9:30 am- Vacuum all of upstairs- this is my chance since in less than an hour their floors will be covered with toys again.

9:45 am- Haul all 12 loads of laundry (this usually takes me four trips up and down the stairs) from laundry room down stairs to master bedroom.

* I wash and dry the laundry as it comes all week. The moving in and out of washing machines and dryers I am sure you can agree is not the challenging part of the laundry. Then I just let it pile up and pretty much fill the entire room. And I don't let it get to me. I don't feel bad about it one bit- because it is my plan.

Even messy feels fine if it is part of the plan.

10:00 am-Collect sheets, towels, hand towels, bath mats, blankies, puppers (bedtime stuffed animal), pillow cases and put them in the washer

10:15-11:15 am- put away the laundry.
*First everything gets separated into person it belongs to, creating four piles
* Then these four piles are divided into three more piles of hung, underwear drawer, and folded.
* Then I carry each pile at a time to its proper location.

11:15 am- Move over the sheets and towels to dryer

11:25 am- Clean the bathrooms. This is the only time the bathrooms get cleaned for the week unless we have company or guests. Trashes, tubs, showers, toilets, sinks, floors, and mirrors.
I have a bucket filled with cleaning supplies and rags that gets carried around to each of the three bathrooms, and the used rags go back into the bucket as I go. The last bathroom I clean is the one downstairs, right next to the laundry room where I drop the rags off in the washer to be immediately washed.

12:00 - Remove hand towels, sheets, bath mats, blankie, etc from washer and make beds, hang towels etc.

12:30 pm- We are ready for lunch with our inside chores done for the week.

Of course we do what we have to to get by for the week with cleaning.
Dishes, basic toy putting away, sweeping and mopping, and vacuuming downstairs- where we spend most of our time is done the thrity minutes each night after the kids go to bed.

Extra chores like windows, Dad's office, cleaning the oven, etc seem to find their way into the mix usually when we are preparing for guests or company.

Later after dinner on Monday we work in the yard as a family, mowing, trimming and weeding for about 1 hour. Then our yard work for the week is done too and we don't have to start every Saturday morning with the yard and can work on other projects of just have fun.

Which is really the point of the "CHORE MONDAY" anyways.