Movin' the beds around

We've known that Nathan needed to move to a twin size bed for a while now.  His little feet were hanging off the toddler bed and he ended up in our bed every night because he didn't like the feel of his bed.  "It's not soft like yours, mom."  He was lying on a crib mattress.  They're meant to prevent SIDS in infants.  Nathan is almost 5.

It was time.

The bedroom situation is going to drastically change eventually.  I'm planning on moving K to the smaller room and letting the boys share the larger room.  But for now, Nathan and Katherine are sharing the new beds we got them - bunk beds - and Brandon has moved to the toddler bed.

 

Side story: Brandon was doing wonderful in his crib.  When it was time to sleep, most of the time he would wave goodbye with his right hand and his left thumb propped half-way in his mouth and word, "Goodnight mommy, I wuv you.  Sweet dreams."  So I didn't feel the pressure to move him to the toddler bed like I did for Nathan.

I digressed.

Bunk beds are so cool.  I remember loving them myself.  We have a daughter that is content with waiting on the move into her own room for now, because of the coolness of the bunk beds.  And, to make it even cooler, she's sleeping on top.

The plan is to have the boys eventually share the bunk beds, with Nathan moving to the top and little guy moving to the bottom when he's outgrown the toddler bed.

I love changing our home's interior.  Stagnant layouts, dated decorations and old setups cause me to feel like we're stuck with what we have.  Repurposing, redesigning and reusing is my answer to not feeling stuck.  And our children have picked up on it.  Katherine has begun asking about once a week if we can re-arrange someone's room. :)

No more sweet little girl's girly room.  It's sharing with the bro for now.

The finished product

Tah dah!

Katherine's big-girl room makeover is finally complete, put together and ready to take pictures of. I love it. It's very bright and girly.

I purposely chose a quilt that would go with the colors that were already in her room. Er, uh, I mean Katherine chose a quilt that she liked that also meant mommy and daddy didn't have to repaint her room. :)

Some Design on a Dime things I did:

• re-painted her name letters and replaced the ribbons hanging them with some I already had
• painted the center flower pictures myself (saw some at Target and I attempted to copy them)
  
• bought cheap white picture mats and painted them myself
• found really nice gold frames with glass on the 60% off aisle and whitewashed them
  

• bought a yard of fabric that matched her quilt
  
• re-purposed curtains given to us by making and sewing ruffles on the top
  
• re-used the existing lamp shades and hot-glued on ruffles to match
  

I'm finding that this pinching pennies thing can be fun. Before it used to be all about buying it all and getting the room done in one afternoon. Well, this one took about a month but definitely has some personal touches.

Jim swears Katherine will be driving before he repaints the bottom of her room. That was all taped by an 8-month pregnant mom-to-be and painted in 3 installments by the reluctant father-to-be. She might be stuck with green gingham for a while.

Overall, I love it and think it fits her personality. She's pretty proud of it also.

Big girl bed

Our little girl passed through another rite of passage in her 4 short years of life. It all came about through some friends of ours, the right timing and a little extra cash raised from selling the double stroller my husband loathed and had nicknamed "The Limo."

Katherine has moved on up to a full size big girl bed.

This past week, I had been using my time out on the front porch, while watching kiddos play, to sand down the loose paint areas. Yesterday was the big painting day. Today was the day to purchase the linens. And tonight was the always fun assembling of the bed, sheets, pillows, shams and re-arranging of the room, again.

The kids had a blast jumping and playing on the mattress while it was on the floor. Daddy even got in some tickle time on me, which Nathan thought was hilarious.

Although, there was one slight problem. Right when it got to the really fun part of putting the bed together with sheets and pillows, Jim and I stood staring at the assembled bed with furrowed brows, speechless. The mattresses were insanely tall and they covered the headboard minus about 2 inches peeking out the top.

I guess our first concern was how tall it was, because Katherine is still kind of sleeping half on and half off of her toddler bed.

The other perplexing part of it all was how the mattresses covered the headboard. The headboard was what I was interested in most about this bed. It's got great little girly-girl curves with turned bedposts and it wasn't too big of a bed for her. So what in the world can we do with this great bed that apparently isn't high enough for the mattress that came with it?

The children found what they could do, which was use the footboard as a ladder, climb up on top of the insanely high bed and jump on it, almost hitting their heads on the spinning fan above.

So far, until she's a little bit more familiar with this bed, she's minus a box spring. If daddy lays on it, the mattress bulges through the support slats underneath. We'll try the box spring again later.

Guess that would explain why I got a really good deal on it.

Good news is that mommy gets to practice a little Design on a Dime and break out some more sewing and painting skills. I see this as the last chance I'll get to decorate her room before she really has some definite likes/dislikes that don't coincide with mine or our budget.