An Insanely Spotty House Tour: Part One, The Kids' Room

I have never claimed interior decorating to be my strong suit. In college, I had several friends who took the Into to Interior Decorating class and each time we chatted about it, I felt that they were speaking a foreign language. I probably would have been able to understand more if they actually HAD been speaking a foreign language. This disclaimer is serving to express that even though my house is not perfectly decorated, I have been able to glean some fantastic information from Rachel Denbow's Style Your Space e-course. And because I have two little helpers with me, the Flanagans' metaphorical Rome will not be built in a day. I have been working on the children's room first, because it is the room we are in the least. Jack prefers to play wherever I am and my daily chores don't often take me to that room. Jack is the only one who is currently sleeping there, because Lucy is still rocking the bassinet in our room. All of the childrens' belongings reside in the room, therefore this room has been dubbed "The Kids' Room."

 

 Jack is quite proud of his room. When we have visitors come, he immediately tries to drag them down the hall to "Jacko's living room." He loves his toys, he loves his bed, and he loves having his own space. We will be moving from this condo at the end of the summer, so I believe that he will be able to solely claim this room until we leave here. It's a good thing, too, because this room is oddly shaped and a crib wouldn't fit easily into the existing set-up.

 The orientation of these photos is going clockwise around the room. Here is the corner where we keep the dresser from when I was a little girl, along with Jack's growth chart and the piggy banks. The black chair was Caleb's choice for a rocking chair when we had Jack; it has been relegated to this room because it is the perfect height for Jack to drive his cars on. And don't worry, that clock is five minutes slow.

This wall was so bare, and while still not perfect, I feel like this finger-knit banner gives the space a little more feeling. Jack has decided upon the things hanging on it, which include photos of himself, a jaguar calendar page from his grandpa, cards of several LDS temples, and postcards with Lightning McQueen.

This space is sometimes (read: always) filled with piles of toys and stuffed animals. In a perfect world, it would look like this all the time.

Said stuffed animals reside on top of Jack's toys, along with his penguin humidifier. Jack has inherited his father's ill health, so the humidifier is a permanent fixture in his room. I try and hide it amongst the mix of vintage and modern stuffed animals. Jack's toys are separated in bins from Ikea and Target, along with some of the larger vintage toys (the cuckoo clock, the choo-choo train, and the like) in their own squares. The hot wheels have their own bin, along with the wooden train tracks and the legos. I recently have become nervous about what we'll do when Lucy gets old enough to have her own toys. I just keep repeating, "Organize, organize, organize."

Jack's bed is also a stronghold for the stuffed animals. Each night, he crawls into his Toy Story/Thomas the Tank Engine bed and insists on these companions: Nemo, Big Wall-E, Little Wall-E, Eve, Thomas the Tank Engine, Sorcerer Mickey Mouse, Gunnar the big hippo, Coco the blue hippo, Memphis the small hippo, and the Mickey Mouse felt pillow. He then requires being covered by the felt Mickey blanket, the felt Thomas blanket, and the vintage alphabet quilt. Then, when he wakes up in the morning, he jumps on his bed and slaps the Wall-E poster.

The last corner houses the foot locker FULL of books, the vintage car garage, and the embroidery projects from Elsie Flannigan's Summer Camp craft course. The blue-and-white dresser holds Lucy's clothes; I didn't intend on the irony of Jack's clothes being in the pink dresser and Lucy's being in the "boy colors" one. This is the least played-in corner, so it's typically this clean.

I have bigger robot-themed plans for the room, but for now, it's a room in which I don't mind playing Buzz & Woody or supreme, ultimate car crashes.