Playroom

Ever since the kids started getting bigger and noisier (lol, yeah, I know...they've barely started), I've thought about how AWESOME it would be to have a playroom. We moved into our new house and it was way better with them in their own rooms, because we split the toys between the rooms and there was more space. But Kaylee always made a huuuuge mess in her room, which isn't that big of a deal really, except that if she needs me at night I'd be tripping over toys, and I didn't like that idea. Same thing with Ben's room, except he is never quite as messy (yet).

We have a basement room, a living room type area, and I decided we'd try making that the playroom. I put all their toys down there, and we all LOVED it. The kids come and go as they please, it's close enough to hear them and check on them easily, but far enough so that when they're playing with their "noisy toys" it doesn't bug me.

And when it looks like this? I don't even care. We can spend 10-15 minutes once or twice a week to organize and clean it up, and then they destroy it all over again. Works for us.

And then...I just had to get thinking. Of course. I couldn't just leave it as it was. It was kinda gross, to be honest. The texture on the walls and ceiling was way over done, everything was just dingy and needed freshening up. So I went to work, of course! I started on Monday October 28th and finished on Halloween (hence the "no homemade costumes this year" thing, at least partially).

I scraped the walls and the ceiling, just to get some of the texture off. At least the big, sharp pointy pieces. Then I filled and caulked holes and cracks, and primed the ceiling. I sanded one wall like CRAZY to get it smooth for a mural I'm going to paint. Will helped me remove all of the molding and put it back on correctly (they didn't push it down into the carpet, so it looked horrible). I caulked and painted the molding, and painted the ceiling. I took down all of the can lights and spray painted them white instead of the beige that they were, and in the process got showered with mouse droppings. Ugh. They were old, I think. Then I painted the walls, and replaced all of the switches and outlets. It took me four days to do that, and it brought back some memories of working on our Salt Lake City house that I think were repressed. I was so exhausted.

Anyway, here are some "before" pictures:

In progress:

It's still in progress. I have BIG plans for this room. But the #1 thing I had to do was get it cleaned up and ready for building and decorating, so this is where we're at right now:

I'm not sure what is up with Kaylee's face in this next one...

Obviously, we still need to get the vents back up (nothing to screw into, so it's a job I need Will's help for!). And we're still contemplating what to do with the closet/storage space. Leave it closed to the kids? Ball pit? Fort? Reading nook? We can't decide.

Before, everything sort of blended into a big, beige mass...now it has some clean lines and definition. Soon it will be time to really get going on making this the most AWESOME playroom! I'm so excited!!!