Hello again!

Holy moly…THREE MONTHS. That is how long it has been since I last posted!

Not sure I have any real valid excuse other than the fact that I really haven’t been projecting much the last few months. Fall leaves, holidays, winter cold, “the littles.”

The littles are our 3 grandbabies under 2.

I really thought Thanksgiving would be a quiet affair for two. We ended up with close to 20 people. Insanity but so much fun. I love to cook and prep for holidays so no biggy!

Christmas was also a surprise. I thought we would end having a quiet day since our adult kids have transitioned to Christmas morning at home with the babies. I didn’t even buy matching pajamas this year because I really didn’t think we would all be together Christmas day. But by 10 a.m., the house was full and we had a great day with lots of food, family and fun! (You can see my Christmas decor from last year HERE…not much changed this year!)

Then winter really set in…deep freeze and a good snow storm. Personally I love it but I don’t have to get out in it.

But after a week of deep freeze I was ready for a major project.

With 3 under two I decided I needed a space for the littles…a playroom.

And find one I did….the guest room!

Mitchell has been inhabiting this room for the last few years while working on his aviation certifications. Katie is in North Carolina finishing up her internships so she rarely makes it home.

While I love having a guest room dedicated to “guests,” I need a space for the littles more.

So first thing…find some inspiration. So much out there and I found some really cute ideas.

But as I have said before, sometimes you have to take a space to base neutral before you can move forward. So I had to get everything out I had no plan to use in the future.

The bed was easy. My plan was to give away the full size bed in the “bunk room” upstairs and move the queen bed upstairs so I would still have a comfy bed for guests (even though they would be surrounded by my Christmas tree forrest…lol!)

Well, you know what they say about best laid plans. There is a door to the staircase and the queen boxsprings would not fit. Curses. I had already committed the full size bed to a friend and the twin bed was coming down to the playroom sooooo…no bed in the bunk room.

Guess if anyone comes to visit they will have to use the blowup mattress or sleep in the twin in the playroom.

I thought about building a full or queen Murphy bed in the playroom with built in shelving. Nice concept but decided to go with a daybed with a trundle. That way the littles have a “couch” and I still have guest bedding!

So the twin stays and the queen went on Marketplace. Sold in a day.

I found a simple, inexpensive daybed with a trundle on Amazon. It will do for now until I get a bug to build something like this….

Love both of these and will certainly go in my inspiration file…but as I said we are in the dead of winter and I have no desire to spend days outside projecting!

I bought the little table and chairs under the window for Thanksgiving dinner…that will stay in the room so they will have a place to color and paint!

The cedar chest was full of photo albums. We bought it at an auction over ten years ago and I gave it a little makeover HERE. Really no sentimental attachment to the piece so I put it on Marketplace…sold in a day!

The art on the wall are watercolor paintings from my parent’s travels to Bermuda and the Bahamas. I love the pink and blues and greens in the the pictures. They may work well so I may keep those for now,

I few things got moved to other rooms…a few things were given to a friend to sell in her flea booth.

This chest of drawers….

(Big Sigh) This is the “Furr Chest”…because it belonged to my great great grandmother Furr. I have inherited it and there is no way I can get rid of it. I have offered it to all my children with no takers. So for now, I will continue to be the keeper of all things heirloom, even things I really have no room for them.

Fortunately this room has a very large closet. I was able to clear out enough space in the closet to store this chest. It is a very sturdy piece and great for storing spare linens and such.

I thought about selling the red bookcase or moving it upstairs. But low and behold, I found a way to repurpose it!

I wanted some cute shelving…especially since I don’t plan to do the built ins for awhile. I found this piece on Amazon….

So stinking cute. Unfortunately it wasn’t exactly what I want…it rotates and is pretty deep so it would take up a hair too much space.

So I decided to build something along these lines.

Building a whole new “cutesy” bookshelf was going to be pretty pricey…then I realized I could use the existing red bookcase and just make some modifications to it…presto bingo. That has been my project for the week and one I will share in the next post!

One addition I knew I wanted was a wall mounted TV. We are all pretty conservative with screen time but who knows when we will want to break out the old Disney VHS tapes. (Yes, I still have a VHS player!)

But hanging cords in a kids playroom are no good. So I decided to add a wall electrical/HDMI outlet higher on the wall so that all the TV cords would be behind the wall mounted TV.

This is NOT a difficult project. I have some electrical abilities….if you have none I don’t think this would be an expensive project for a pro!

You can buy these flat screen TV kits HERE.

I combined it with THIS wall plate.

Fortunately there was an outlet on the wall where I want to mount this box.

FIRST, TURN OFF THE POWER AT THE BREAKER BOX!

There should be a stud on either side of the existing outlet…I used a stud finder to locate that stud.

The electric wire to the existing outlet SHOULD run down the side of the stud the box is on.

I put the TV kit above the existing outlet, where I intended to mount the TV, and dropped new electric wiring down to the existing outlet .

I have found the easiest way to get new wiring into an existing electric outlet box is to first pull the outlet out of the box, then drill a 1-1 1/4” hole with a paddle bit in the back of the existing box. (careful not hit the wiring!)

Follow the directions with the kits to install the boxes…it really isn’t difficult!

You will wire the new electric wire from the existing outlet to a new outlet in the TV kit.

Once I tapped into the existing outlet with new wiring I also dropped a HDMI cord from the TV kit to to a new hole where I installed the new wall plate.

You can also drop RCA cables, audio cables, etc.

Simple Simon!

The little kitchen set is a hand-me-down from Mitchell’s girlfriend. She has two boys, ages 3 and 8, which is another reason I desperately need a playroom…three littles and two little boys!

Yes, I need a place where they can be comfy when they are old enough to spend the night with Papa and Grammy.

But more importantly, I want this room to be a fun, creative, and inspirational space for kids whose ages range from 6 months to 8 years.

I am taking my time and thinking very carefully about every element of this room.

BTW, my PLAN was to empty the room and paint, then start the process. I read an article recently that said you should paint your room LAST, after you have all the bedding, curtains, rugs, etc. picked out. Makes perfect sense to me…it is so much easier to match a paint color to existing accessories than it is to match accessories to a paint color! Think I’ll try this process and see how that works out!

So…next up is finishing this cute little bookshelf I am transforming. Hopefully I will have that ready to share next week!!!

Until then….