Boys' Bedrooms

Earlier in the week, a friend of mine and I were talking about our children's bedrooms. She just moved into a new house and is enjoying painting, setting up, and planning furniture for her kids' rooms. As we were talking and I shared our current solutions, it occurred to me that I never posted about the boys' rooms. I had planned a post since over the summer, Big Brother and Little Brother got a bunk bed and they love it!

(Duplo creation out of reach of a grabby baby!)

They only have one window in their room and although it faces east, it's not the brightest room. The walls are actually a very pretty pale green, although I probably wouldn't have chosen it myself. One day, we'll paint!

Baby Brother sleeps across the hall. We recently moved the play kitchen upstairs to give him and Little Brother more options during school.

Both rooms are a nice size, and I love the hardwood floors in our house! It's hard to believe in four days we'll celebrate one year in our "new" home

New Arrival

I love having the house ring with music!

Calendar Ring

Helping us count the months, weeks, and days...

New House Tour: Downstairs, Part 1

(Disclaimer: the window treatments came with the house, and I haven't had the energy to tackle that headache yet!)

The view from the front entry... Stairs to the right, living room to the left, kitchen straight ahead.

The living room... Dining room is through the doorway on the back right.

View from the playroom looking into the kitchen and through to the dining room. The white door to the left of the tall cupboards is the powder room. The two doors on the left are the garage and basement.

The playroom is constantly in use (of course), so it's hard to get a shot that doesn't look like a tornado just came through. I'll get there! Our hutch finally arrived yesterday for the dining room, so once I finish unpacking in there, the tour will continue.

House Tour: School Room

When we found out we were going to be moving late last fall, other than losing our fantastic backyard, I was most sad about leaving our school room. I worked pretty hard to make it exactly what I wanted, and despaired at finding something that would work as well.

Well...believe it or not, I think this is even better!

Traveling counterclockwise around the room...

Our Style: Toys as Decor!

We recently moved into a new house, and I've had to do some rethinking about layout, toy usage and storage, and decor.

Our Ostheimer figures were sitting in baskets when not in use and not adding as much beauty to our lives as they could, so last weekend I decided to put them to work instead!

The shelves on one side of the fireplace...


The top shelf is scenery and the tiniest figures that could pose a choking hazard to the baby. The next shelf is a woodland scene, the third is wild animals (not geographically accurate!), and the bottom is our barn and farm figures.

The boys can't reach these, so they function as a visible "toy library" and help us rotate our toys.

A seasonal display on the piano...

These are our Arctic/Antarctic figures and our festivity stand. The boys have it decked out with nearly every ornament we own, so it's currently a four-season stand, but we'll be changing it up for Lent soon!

I'm thinking of moving the figures from the playroom shelves to have knickknack spaces in the living room, but we'll see!

Full house tour coming soon!

Play Spaces Revisited

After our creation of a school room two weekends ago, our main living/play space underwent some dramatic changes of its own! Here is a very out-of-date post on our playroom. It changed quite a bit even before our big move this month. I'll have to do a another "tour" soon.

First, we added a train table that we found on Craigslist in the foyer (or "playroom extension"). This is were our four-sided bookcase used to be along with the cozy corner. Now it houses the water table when not in use, a small shelf of toys and the train/play table in the middle of the room. This came with two small stools so we're also using it for play dough and other messy projects.

Since our child-size table moved upstairs along with our four-sided shelf, I moved the boys' arm chairs from the music room/library and bought a small display bookcase for our current reads (non-curricular).

Not sure if it's the librarian in me or what, but I adore this!

We'd finally had enough of our Craigslist couch and ottoman (and the chair in the music room), so I sold them and found this couch on Craigslist instead! It is in much better shape: our old one was very faded and had spots and back cushions never stayed in place or well-fluffed. This one is much better and even came with a "chocolate" slip-cover to help combat kid-use.

Last but not least, after being inspired by Emma and Father John's addition of French doors to transform a dining room into Fr. John's office, we added doors to our music room/library to keep the cats out. This room has been gated and off-limits to the boys their whole lives, but the cats were getting into trouble in there. It was time for a change! This will allow my husband to practice in there as well without disturbing sleeping children or other house activities. (Though we all love to hear him play!)

Craigslist Finds

In the past week, we found two great pieces on Craigslist.

An "antique" toddler chair for older brother:

A china cabinet for our homeschool books and art supplies. I love the space to spread out my plans and supplies for the current day/week.

May Day

Happy May Day! We ushered in this month of Marian devotion with gardening! We want to create a Mary Garden this year and what better day to begin?

I originally planned on devoting an area outside our kitchen door to the garden, but upon doing some reading I discovered that almost every plant we have in the various gardens around our home (there are six or seven) has a religious meaning behind it! For example, hosta (or plantain lily) is known as the Assumption Lily! So rather than devoting a single area to Our Lady, I think our the entirety of our gardening pursuits will be dedicated to Mary. Even the strawberry patch...strawberries are "Fruitful Virgin!"

Today we spent the afternoon outside, and did most of our planting and I started some rearrangement. Our fenced in area has an awkward oval-y shaped partial shade garden edged with rocks (for lack of a better, more-artistic phrase!) that's very inconvenient to running, rambunctious boys. Yesterday a friend came and took several of my peonies and hosta plants and today I moved the bleeding heart along here:

This area of the gardens has more hosta, day lilies (St. Joseph's Lily), columbine (Our Lady's Shoes), chrysanthemums (All Saints' Flower), hydrangea (Ave Maria), and now the bleeding heart (Mary's Heart).

Here's a quick tour of the other work we did today and Our Lady's flowers:

The big stump holds petunias (Lady's Praise), alyssum (Mary's Little Cross), vinca vine, and a variety of daisy...

Window boxes with pansies (Trinity Flower), petunias, dusty miller, alyssum, and lobelia...

The only tulips that bloomed this year. This is another garden that's going to be revamped. The stones have to go and the peonies (Pentecost Rose), irises, and tulips (Mary's Prayer) will probably be moved. I have enough bulbs for an army, by the way. They are out of control!

Oh, and I have to show off the wonderful gate my husband built last weekend for the front porch. Our school time will relocate out here this summer as well as playtime during on rainy or very hot and sunny days. The porch is completely sheltered from rain and almost always shady.

Glimpses of Home

Our door harp chimes lightly every time we open this door and marks our comings and goings...

One of our rotating pictures. One day this peaceful scene will adorn the wall in the boys' room...

Setting up the winter scene...

Creating a Child Friendly Environment: Low Shelf

I was inspired recently to keep working on our child-friendly environment. I have toyed with the idea of moving tableware to a cupboard for a while, but wasn't thrilled with the idea of rearranging our cupboards so thoroughly to accommodate such a change. After reading this post at Chasing Cheerios, however, I had a brainstorm! Why not move around my pots and pans and use the rolling shelf for our older son's tableware and some of his other supplies? My mom helped me find new homes for about half of my pots and pans, and we were in business! Our little guy spent time washing windows after I unveiled his new set-up, and happily helped himself to his dinner plate at suppertime!

On the right, you can see I also attached a hook for his apron!

The left side features his window washing/cleaning kit, our child-sized washboard, and his brush and dustpan. On the right are his plates, several bowls and cups (I couldn't fit everything!), and his toddler-sized silverware, courtesy of Oneida Limited. I love these sets: they include a spoon, fork, and butter knife and are not the small baby sets, but not quite full-sized either! Just perfect for preschooler hands!

Playroom Tour

It's been a while, so click to see the "in progress pictures!"

A view of the whole room...

(I would like to point out that I took these photos at 9:30 AM after several hours of playtime and both boys are still in their pajamas!)

(Doorways to the kitchen on either side of this couch.)

(Felt board pieces made by the lovely Emma! DS chose that morning's design...note the leaves that have "fallen" from the tree!)

The foyer or "playroom extension"...

(The cozy corner is opposite this shelf. This is where I keep all our art supplies, DS's musical instruments, several of his Montessori works, and store the supplies for activities that aren't in use.)

(Our four-sided display bookcase also holds puzzles. The doors to the downstairs bathroom and the stairs are to the right of the rocking chair. The front door is to the left, and straight ahead, behind the gate, is the library/music room.)

There you have it! This room and the kitchen are where we spend most of our days!

The Cozy Corner

A few weekends ago, my dear husband built this cozy corner for our boys! It's tucked in the corner behind the playroom and the perfect place to snuggle and read...or for mom to hide on "one of those days!"

The top and sides are draped with cotton gauze and silk. There is a down comforter and pillow topped with a Snugglewool blanket. It's a bit taller than I'd originally envisioned, but we are a household of tall boys! Eventually, I'd like to pick up one more piece of pink fabric to drape across the back and add some more pillows to create a deep, cozy nook.

Writing Desk and a Reading Corner