I need a little help picking out material for curtains. Sadly this is the story of my life, which is why all the curtains in my house are white. I can not commit to a fabric. Ridiculous. The kids’ room is too white for white curtains. And they go to bed before it’s dark out these days, so they need a little light blockage action if they are ever going to get to sleep. Here are the windows (sorry one is a before picture, the other is a during): window one, window two. The fabrics I’m thinking about are pictured above, they are:

1. nani iro painting muji canvas
2. joel dewberry herringbone
3. nani iro saaaa saaa (it looks like I randomly typed some letters, but that’s really what it’s called)
4. alexander henry pirate grid

I want something dark blue and something hand drawn-ish.  So vote away! Tell me what to do. My kids will never sleep if you don’t tell me which to get. Really. And if you have any other suggestions, I love to hear them.

This is all a part of me redoing my kids room and you helping. The posts about the process so far are Before and During.

So this is where we’re at with the room so far (here are all the before pictures). I told you my brother built a bunk bed, but I didn’t tell you it was a cloud bed! He built the loft bit and then we cut out clouds from some scrap wood. I made patterns out of paper first to make sure it was randomy and to see if the clouds would be high enough to function as a guard rail. When I was about half way through cutting them out, I freaked out and thought it might look too dorky theme-y, but I think it turned out okay. What do you think? Now the big question is whether or not to paint them. I think maybe I’ll paint some white, but not all. And maybe one striped like this awesomeness.

I think we’ve chosen a color for the wall–those are all paint chips taped the wall. It’s called cotton balls, really it’s just white. Not that exciting, I know. But I am excited about that big board up there. It’s a quilting board (or something like that, I don’t know, it’s got a graph on the back) that my neighbor gave me a looong time ago. It folds out one more on each side, so it’s pretty big–maybe too big? Anyway, I’m going to paint a map of our neighborhood on it. I grew up “out the back road” so there wasn’t a lot I needed to know to get around. But we live on an actual block! So I thought the kids might like to see the way we go to the library and the store and their friends’ houses on a big map. I’m thinking I need some sort of projector for this project. And I haven’t decided what to do about the places: pushpins? polaroids? have my kids draw pictures? shrinky dinks? Any ideas you have would be fantastic. The baby’s crib will be under it eventually, so pushpins might be out.

This is the closet, or was the closet. Now it is my daughter’s desk (my son got the bunk bed, she got a desk, even steven). I’ve got a few ideas for this, one of them being paint the entire sucker white.  I’m sure there will be more ideas in the future, because I’m taking a class for this very purpose. It’s called Playful Learning Spaces.  It’s an e-course designed to guide you through creating thoughtful spaces for your children to play in and learn. It sounds like the perfect class and comes just at the perfect time for me.

And now for the surprise: the creator of this wonderful class, Mariah Bruehl, has kindly offered to give away a spot in her class to one of my readers! But you have to be snappy, because class starts tomorrow! You have until 5pm central time to drop your name in the hat (that is, leave a comment–sharing some input on the room if you’d like). Good luck and I’ll see one of you in class!

THE GIVEAWAY IS CLOSED!

Celeste from on-hand modern is the winner! Congratulations Celeste!

yay! so glad you guys are going to think up all the good ideas for me, because I’m running low. Mostly I want the room to look big, even though it’s small. And be able to be full of kid’s stuff, while still looking sparse.

Sounds totally impossible, right? But I think these first two rooms do it well.

This room is a little too much on the minimal side of things, but there are three kids in a small room and it doesn’t feel in the least bit crowded.

Super simple and super white, but the natural wood bits make it extra good. I’m not very good with the whole mood board thing (mostly because saying it makes me throw up in my mouth a little) but I guess a little vision is good, rather than doing random shit here and there and hoping it comes together–my usual m.o.

As for stuff: I’d like a record display rack for the books and a little house shelf please.

I made a curtain for my kids’ closet this weekend. Not a big deal, but I hate making curtains, no, haaaaaate making them, so it’s a big deal for me. It’s just so much hemming and I kind of suck at hemming, but the curtain isn’t as bad as it looks–though it is a little straighter on one side.  There are more curtains that need to be made and I’m trying to psych myself up for it. I finally after three years of living here have picked out fabric, but haven’t ordered it yet. I want to try this roller shade hack, which looks easy enough, and roman blinds, which look hard. Has anyone had any luck with them?

I also cranked out some fitted sheets for the kids’ beds. I simplified the process a bunch from last time I made sheets. The edges are serged not hemmed and the elastic is only around the corners.  I was able to get two fitted sheets (for my kids’ weird size beds) out of one full size flat sheet. That means the pattern is sideways, but they couldn’t care less. The flannel sheet has deer and bunnies and someone about to get pelted by a snowball right in the butt.

Oh and I have some of that ikea bunting fabric left, do you think it would be ridiculous to make my son pants out of it? Would dying it gray help? or should I just make pillows and call it a day?

I’m still posting about past projects, while I try to make this blog better. That will probably have to wait until the tech support I’m married to has time, which is always in short supply. There are new projects in the works, but progress is slow with two babies in my charge. This little banner was made for one of those babies. When I was pregnant with my second child, my friends threw me a lovely baby shower. Along with many unexpected and beautiful gifts, they all brought a little swatch of fabric to be made into a banner. My good friends, who planned it all, didn’t have sewing machines, so I offered to put it together. They gave me the templates–three different size triangles–and I cut and arranged the fabrics and sewed them to this big ol’ blue rickrack they picked out.  Nothing fancy, but the various sizes make it a little different and big rickrack is always awesome.  I really like that the fabric came from all different closets and bookshelves and boxes (why is it everyone has a little stash of fabric, even if they don’t sew?), that it’s a mix of new and old, and that it came together so well.  It makes me incredibly happy every time I look at it. We moved to this town when my daughter was very small and I didn’t know anyone. Now I am surrounded by a group of very generous and very talented women. I am too lucky.