Playroom Pin-spiration.

Well you've all seen the mess that was the playroom. After relocating all toys, furnishings and random stuff (headless Barbie dolls), GG and I decided that it was time to seriously sort through, purge, and reorganize the kid's stuff.

Honestly, I said I would never be that parent; you know the spoiling kind, but oh, it's so easy to overspoil you kids. You don't even know you're doing it. Gifts for holidays, special occasions, and random things bought on clearance or at the Dollar Tree throughout the years REALLY adds up. Then YOU (actually I), have a huge, overwhelming mess on our hands.

Pictures of our playroom show that everything had a place and a space.  It was a functional room for the kids, but it was kind of always an eye sore for me. Not my favorite room in the house. It desperately needed paint on the walls, ceiling, a new light fixture, and oh that carpet, yeah stains ALL over it. It's' an old house; what else can I say?

Since the big mess that fell from the heavens (or the ceiling), we've been granted the money to actually update this space in a big way.

So I did what every other digital woman does... I pinned. I have finally found  a color scheme, a vision for organization, and all the little details in between, that I believe will make this room, my most favorite room in the house. All I need now is a lot of storage options, seating, a place for the TV and DVD player, a new rug, a functional play table and a new home for the kid's play kitchen.

It all started with the inspiration room that I found on Pinterest designed by Jen of I Heart Organizing.  I'm sure you've seen it as well.

Inspiration Room (I Heart Organizing)

I love everything about this space. The storage/seating area is perfect for small rooms like our 11.5' x 11.5' playroom. We have a great hand-me-down Pottery Barn Farmhouse table and chairs. I plan to paint the top with chalkboard paint as well, such a clever idea. The colors of this room really speak to me as well, but I wanted to go with softer shades. I've decided on aqua, yellow, grey with pops of dark teal. Before actually choosing room colors, we first picked out our new flooring. We went the cheap route and got North Perry Pine (vinyl wood plank) from Lumber Liquidators. It was marked down to $0.79/sq ft. I used an additional 20% off coupon and got 2520 sq ft (my house is 2506 sq ft) for $1725 (after discount and taxes). Yeah my husband and I saved a ton by choosing a much more resilient flooring than traditional wood or laminate. AND we got enough of it to cover the ENTIRE house. There will be a lot of weekends of tearing up old carpet, prepping floors, and laying down our new tile, but it will be worth it come next year when all of our flooring is installed.

Floor (Lumber Liquidators), Fan (Amazon), Bins (Walmart)

Our new ceiling fans (bought 5 of these beauties...) will go in all of the bedrooms (including playroom) and the scrap room. Hunter is a wonderful brand, and these were discounted at Amazon to $69.95 each, yes another awesome steal! The grey design bins will go in our new cube storage from Walmart (just like Ikea, just cheaper with great reviews).

 

Soft Mint (Benjamin Moore), Galvanized Bin (Walmart)

 This beautiful paint was the inspiration for the walls in the playroom. I went super cheap though and bought a gallon of "oops" paint at Home Depot. It is Glidden and the name is chipped off, so I can't figure the name. It is very similar to the above color, perhaps more aqua with more blue in it. Still VERY close and for only $9.00 I couldn't pass it up. Also I love the BHG Galvanized bin for taller toys like the Stars Wars light sabers and swords that we have.

Lamp (Target), Toss Pillow (Target)

 Of course no room is complete without a beautiful, cheap lamp ($25), and love decor. I love, love this yellow pillow.

Toss Pillow (Target), Rug (Target)

 And I have plans to sell off our freshly, professionally cleaned green shag rug and replace it with this yellow gem. The Target toss pillow really inspired me to change my color scheme to include only aqua, dark teal, grey, and yellow, so, stinkin' cute.

Playroom Closet, Bookshelf (Walmart, Ikea)

In our playroom, which is a bedroom (technically), we will have storage in our closet similar to this. We have shelving almost identical now, but we plan to move the shelves and make space for the play kitchen to have a home.  Additionally, we plan to buy one of these BHG 8-Cube Organizer (like Ikea, but cheaper alternative), to hold books, bins, TV and lamp.

Floting Shelvesa, Art Supply Storage

Last but not least, we have a cheap bookshelf that I plan to repurpose as art supply storage with plastic shoe boxes and these wonderful hanging galvanized tins (I own all this already), just going to pretty it up a bit. I'm thinking a beautiful dark teal on the white bookshelf. It could use some prettying up.

Well that's the plan. Our room will take a different shape, VERY similar to the inspiration room. The cube storage will come from Walmart and fit perfectly in the space. I have it all measured out.

I can't wait to start slapping paint on the walls. Tonight we are going to texture the ceiling. Once that's done, we'll remove the current light fixture and get to town painting that sucker. I LOVE white ceilings. Makes low (8ft) ceilings like ours seem more open and taller.

On another note, I've been spending a lot of time organizing in my head.... putting toys in their various baskets. I plan to make some pretty little labels to make it easy to keep clean too (just like the inspiration room). I mean we will have 16 storage cubes to fill (the other 4 will hold books) - so this is how I plan to organize them:

1. Cars

2. Large Legos/Duplos

3. Blocks

4. Barbie

5. Little people

6. Disney figurines

7. Dora play set

8. Loving family

9. Action figures

10. Dinosaurs

11. Animals

12. Puzzles

13. Foam blocks

14. Wooden toys

15. Educational toys

16.

 Under the Farmhouse table will be a large bin that holds train stuff.

The bottom floor of the closet will have the kitchen and our 3 tiered rolling cart next to it. I plan to house kitchen food/plates, baby dolls/accessories, and misc. dress up items (keys, wallets, money, cards, jewelry) in those bins. If there is enough room, I'd like to place hooks on the side to hang dress up clothes.

The second shelf in the closet will hold our Little People playsets, doll houses, and small lego bin.

The third shelf in the room will have stuff animals that we refuse to get rid of - all the Disney stuff pretty much. WE love Disney at our house.

The small bookshelf will be repainted and house markers/pencils, crayons, scissors/glue/paintbrushes, and chalk in little hanging pails. Coloring books, drawing pads and paper will be housed in magazine holders, and clear shoe boxes will hold stamps, paints, craft supplies, and art supplies.

That's all folks. Our playroom pin-spiration. I hope you feel just as inspired to organize and update rooms in your house on a thin budget. I plan to post more pictures of the room in progress as well. Just need to get my camera hooked up to the ipad. Forgot to do that today.

What's going on...

What's going on... what's going on... - such a fab song. Don'tcha think?

I haven't had a lot of free time lately. Well that's not completely true. I did just spend 5 wonderful days with friends and family scrapbooking at Memory Lane Inn, but I was "working" on scrapbooking, so not much "free time," if you know what I mean.

While on my wonderful retreat, I shared a "how to" Plan, Prepare and Pack for a Scrapbook Retreat over at the MLI blog. In addition, on Monday my mish-mash, scraproom on the cheap was featured over at Blissful and Domestic for Danielle's series on Creating a Beautiful Life on Less. It was truly an amazing opportunity. I am so glad that Danielle asked to feature my room because it is important for others to see that craft rooms are not always perfect. Most of them are not professionally designed, and they are not always the purdiest. They are places where memory making (and craft making) magic happens, and they get messy and are often a thrown-together mish-mash, like my room, which is still a work in progress. Would you believe that I am getting new flooring in there? I know it's all kinds of crazy in my house, and I am only getting updated flooring because of a mess of stuff that just came through the ceiling, literally.

JUNE

In June, we celebrated Sawyer's 2nd birthday. We had a sweet Mickey Mouse themed splash birthday party. It was a wonderful day for hot dogs, swimming, sprinklers, cupcakes and cookies. Our family likes to do birthdays on the cheap, so with a couple of tarps, old sprinklers and a pool, fun was had by all.

Cookies are from TSCookies on Etsy

Cupcakes from local friend and cake decorator Tiffnie Schindler

JULY

July has also been quite an eventful month. We spent some wonderful quality time together at Dinosaur World in Glen Rose, TX.  It is a great little park, where kids big and small can see almost life size dinosaur statues, find gemstones, and dig for dinsosaur bones.

Then we had a lovely time watching fireworks with my family and friends on Independence Day.

A few days later, a small leak began in our playroom. It started as a dripping bubble, so we punctured the bubble and repaired the leak to keep it from happening again. The next day the AC stopped working, so we called in our home warranty, and they sent someone to the house. On Thursday, the ceiling in the playroom completely caved in, I guess from the weight of the wet insulation and the leak that had spread across the ceiling. It was a nightmare!! We've been very fortunate that our insurance is working with us despite our very high deductible. I didn't realize it was so high or else I would've changed that ages ago.

Just a few tidbits about my home... in the past year (since January 2014), we've fixed a foundation leak,  replaced our hot water heater, dealt with a burst pipe and flood in the carpeted bedrooms and hallway, installed brand-new insulation in the attic, resealed a broken toilet ring, fixed a leaky sink faucet, replaced a broken shower head, and now we are going to replace all the carpeting in the house, replace the lost insulation from the leak, fix the GAPING hole in the ceiling, paint the walls/trim, and our house will be practically brand new.  The next thing to go is the AC; I am well aware of this. Hopefully this won't happen for at least another year because honestly, we absolutely cannot afford to do that ANYTIME soon. 

Our home is such a blessing and our shelter, but this year it has also been a real money pit too.

Goodness, it just feels good to vent about this big mess. Eek.