Connor & Isla's Shared Room

Our house actually has four bedrooms, but one of those rooms is downstairs and for right now works great as a playroom, so everyone is upstairs together. When we first moved in, I put Connor in the larger room, assuming him and Callum would eventually share a bedroom. I was so excited with how both Connor and Isla's bedrooms turned out, though I never shared Isla's on the blog. But, after Callum sleeping horribly bunked up with Ian and I, I got a wild hair and while the kids were at school one day, moved Isla in with Connor. The transition with the two of them sharing a room actually went quite well. Me settling on how I wanted the room to be, not so much. 

This is actually the FOURTH way the kids beds have been arranged since sharing a room. But, I like this way the best so far and it's working really well. They are opposite of each other. Isla can see into the hall, which really helps her at night. And, this allows for both of them to sort of have their own little spot. 

Most of the stuff in their room has been repurposed from other parts of our house. I tend to rearrange things in our house a lot. For instance, the quilt on Connor's bed used to be on his bed a while ago and made a comeback with me wanting to simplify their room a bit...which that quilt is a Pottery Barn Kids one that I scored for $5 one time. Yep, totally bragging about that one. And the bookshelf above Isla's bed used to be a shelf in Connor's nursery way back in the day...then was in Isla's room for a while. And the night stand was originally for Isla's nursery, then went into Connor's room, then went away and is now back. I could go on and on, but you get the picture. 

^^ My apologies for the bed being slightly off center. I promise I will fix it!

^^ The little hobbit door goes to our attic. We don't actually have anything in there. I have big plans of us one day pushing that wall back several feet and making this room much bigger. Who needs an attic anyway when you also have a storage basement and a full attic over your back house?! Our house has crazy amounts of (mostly unused) storage.

^^ My parents actually bought these lockers. But I saw them and wanted them. The kids were super excited about them too.

Believe it or not, I actually took a lot out of the kids rooms in the last rearrange. Even though most of their toys are in the playroom, they each still had a bin of toys in here that I took out. It helps keep things cleaner. But even with just books, stuffed animals and pokemon cards (don't get me started on the pokemon cards!), they can do a lot of damage quickly.

I am really happy with how it turned out. And they seem to be too...and that's what really matters. This makes me think I probably should do an updated living room post at some point too, given that I have rearranged in there a couple times since moving in too...seriously, rearranging is kind of my hobby.

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Connor's New Room

So I get a new house, don't share any photos and the first thing I do share is my kid's room. I know, I know. But, let's be honest for a minute. I always seem to get my kids stuff set up before the rest of the stuff. Plus, there was less to hang on the walls, so not as much drama in his room with the plaster walls! But, the living room is actually pretty much done, so if you are lucky, that will be next. 

The majority of this stuff was in Connor's last room. With the move, we decided to unbunk Connor's bunk beds. You can pretty much not feel the ceiling fan on the bottom bunk and with it being the middle of summer, I thought it would be a good idea to feel the fan. 

My favorite part of the room is the light up "c" letter. It is on it's own timer and goes on for 4 hours each night. It brings a smile to my face every time I see it light up and I love tucking Connor into bed under the glow of it. I know, it's always the simple things in life for me! 

It's funny that I got those curtains for Connor's room when he was a baby. Back then I didn't know he would be into space, I just thought they were cute. And I have certainly gotten my money's worth with them. This is now the third room they've hung in. 

That little door next to Connor's bed is access to a HUGE attic. We didn't have a usable attic before, so haven't put anything in there yet. I have all sorts of big plans to push out the wall of Connor's room and make it bigger for him and Callum to share a room, but I am sure those plans are pretty far down the road…and maybe around a corner or two! 

Several months ago now, I decided to clear pretty much all of Connor's toys out of his room, except for his legos. I also kept all his books in there. I have really liked having it like this. It makes cleaning up his legos, which he plays with all the time, so much easier because they aren't mixed in with a whole bunch of other toys. Plus, now that Callum is getting older, I am implementing a strict only legos in the bedroom policy to try to keep those tiny little buggers out of the grasp of Callum. 

Enough rambling on, here's Connor's room...

Source List:

Comforter - Pillowfort from Target

"C" letter - Target

Solar System Mobile - Pottery Barn Kids

Rug - Ikea (similar)

Curtains - Dwell Studio for Target (no longer available)

"No girls allowed" sign - Hobby Lobby

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Connor's Bedroom

 

Connor has been out of town with my parents and nephew for the week. I decided to give his room a good cleaning while he was gone and thought why I was at it, I should take pictures of his room. I may as well be able to remember the momentous occasion when his room stayed clean for more than 3 minutes! His room has also changed a lot since the last time I shared it.

Some friends of ours were moving (this happened at least a year ago) and gave us their bunk beds. We passed on the generosity by giving the slide bed to another family as well. For being a relatively small room, Connor's room has a lot of storage, thanks to the Ikea bookshelves. Those things hold a ton. Plus, I like the kids being able to see their toys and grab exactly what they are looking for.

^^ Connor's dress up stuff.  This stuff gets played with a lot by both him and Isla. 

 

^^ After all these years, I still have the craft project I made for Connor when he was little hanging up in his room…and I still try not to handle it too much, for fear it will fall apart.  

^^ I keep little mementos of Connor's in this jar. I am sure he won't ever care about them, but it's things like his ticket from his first Giant's baseball game, his first movie, etc. 

^^ The lego station. Back in the day, I had these grand ideas that Connor would play with his legos on top of that cute little thing. Well, the joke was on me because lego play cannot be contained! 

I should mention that normally this room has legos spread out in every single nook and cranny, making it extremely difficult and dangerous to walk in. Add on top of that any other toy that was gotten out to be played with…yeah, I don't know how kids can concentrate with the mess all over, but they seem to thrive on it. Connor does a good job making his own bed, in fact his perfectionistic tendencies come out when he makes his bed. But the bed making seems to be the only way he "cleans" his room without me forcing him to.

Anyway, that's Connor's room. It's where a lot of playing happens, a lot of lego building, and a lot of yelling for his sister to get out.

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Connor's New Room

I am fairly certain the number of times Connor's room has been redone/rearranged in his lifetime is a testament to how his mom is...I tend to switch things up often. That is why I don't like to commit and tend to never buy really expensive things.

For memory lane's sake, here is what Connor's room looked like when I did it when we first moved into our house and here is when I overhauled it a year later. And guess what? A year later, the kid is in a different room in the same house! But this time, he now has a big boy bed. Like I said, I switch things up often. I would like some credit though...two years on, he is still using the same bedding/curtains.

The vision I had for this room and how it turned out are two totally different things. I changed my mind about things so often along the way. Craigslist doesn't help. I wasn't looking for a bed with a slide, but saw it on craigslist and thought it was cool. I really wasn't thinking when I decided on it. It was so difficult to figure out how to arrange the room around the slide. After rearranging twice by myself (and switching up furniture with other rooms) I called in reinforcement...my mom.

My mom patiently listened to me as I explained what I didn't like about the other arrangements and tried to think of what I would like. Having the slide by the window just made the most sense. But then there was this weird corner that I didn't know what to do with. It is now a reading corner...and I would like to proudly brag that I bolted the shelf to the wall all by myself, with anchors and everything.

 

The other thing I was struggling with about the room was wherever the slide ended up would be dead space and I didn't like how that looked. My mom simply suggested the shelf/wall hook combo. Love it! So simple, useful and decorative. Thanks mom! 

I really like how the room turned out. And I am glad that I didn't get ahead of myself and do some of the things I was originally planning on doing because they were all semi-permanent and revolved around the bed being in a specific location...a location that the slide bed would NOT have worked in.

The kids really love the slide bed. They go a little crazy with it. And a week in, no one has fallen off it yet. I think that is pretty dang successful.

Connor's Room - version 2.0

Remember how I mentioned I decided to rip up Connor's carpet and it ended up being a much bigger project than expected? Well, exactly a week later, Mr. Connor is back in his room.

Let me fill you in on the floor drama. Knowing that all but two rooms in the house are hardwood, I figured in those two rooms the wood was just covered in carpet. Connor's carpet has been bugging me lately because it is just so dirty. So I decided I would pull it up. When moving the furniture, I discovered mold all along the baseboard behind Connor's dresser. When we pulled up the carpet, the bottom side of the carpet that was under his dresser was all moldy as well...from his humidifier. So stinking disgusting! And what lay beneath the carpet pad was also a disgusting mess - some nasty 30+ year old glue. And boy was it work trying to remove it. We were on our hands and knees scrubbing. Finally Ian had the sense to talk to our neighbor about it. He does house re-models. He told Ian he would help re-do the floors and also said that old glue is nasty, like full of bacteria. Makes me glad we were on our hands and knees scrubbing in it! GROSS. Anyway, on Sunday the floor was sanded down and varnished. Another coat of varnish went on yesterday and today Connor got to move back in his room.

I did some updating in his room in the process. I stole the rug from Isla's room to use in here. Don't worry, she will get a new one. Using some Ikea bookshelves, I made him some storage benches (I got the idea from here). I still have to make the top cushions, but I am so pleased with how they turned out.

I stole the blue containers from Isla's closet and took the 7up crates from other places in our house. Instant storage! And tons of it. I love how streamlined it looks.

These cool bookshelves are actually spice racks from Ikea with a coat of spray paint on them. And the stuffed animal storage is a wall plant basket I picked up second hand.

Here's the room one more time for you:

Aww, I love how grown up, clean and streamlined it looks.

And in case you care, you can read/see the progression of Connor's room from the time we moved in - when we first moved in and when we switched him to a toddler bed.

Connor's Room - In Progress

As I mentioned before, one of the things I was really excited about for getting our own home was properly decorating a room for Connor. A couple months ago, I stumbled across some adorable bedding for his room (so the baby can have his crib bedding) and that became the basis for the room.

This weekend we* painted the room. I use the term "we" loosely. My parents spent all day Saturday painting the room. All day, you ask? Well, apparently the room had been painted with oil based paint, so it was repelling the paint I bought. It was a headache. But after about 2300 coats of paint, it is done. And even though my parents spent all day Saturday painting, Ian had to spend a couple hours on Sunday painting as well. But its done. And I like it.

Connor wanted to preview his room to you...well, at least the paint color. I have been instructed not to hang anything on the walls for a few days until the paint is "good and dry", so you won't get to see the finished product for a few days. But here is what Connor was willing to show you this morning while hamming it up in his bed.

*I said "we" painted the room because both Saturday and Sunday I provided the entertainment for the painters. AND I was nice enough to point out all the spots that needed repainting!