Operation Shared Bedroom: The Reveal

It's about time, right?

If you're new here, I started this project in November of last year.  We decided to create a shared room for our two older kids, in order to make room for Baby's nursery.   Our son was not the least bit excited about getting kicked out of his room to move into a "girl's room".  To lighten the blow, I removed all things pink and attempted to make it as unisex as possible without spending a ton of money on new things.

I took pictures of the finished room the day before going to the hospital to have Baby.  That was over four months ago.  I wasn't in love with how they turned out, so I was gonna try to get some better ones.  Who am I kidding?  The room will NEVER be that clean again.

Climbing up to the top bunk at nine months pregnant in an attempt to get a few of the pictures was an interesting feat, let me tell ya.  It's a wonder I'm not still up there hollerin' for help to get down.

To see the posts leading up to the finished room, click here.

As I mentioned in a previous post, I originally painted the stripes on the wall when preparing the room for The Girl's nursery.  I found the old paint swatches, so opted to buy a couple quarts and touch up the walls, rather than paint the whole room again.

The dresser was one I found at a junk store when I was pregnant with The Kid.  I had fixed it up and painted it white for his nursery.  This time around, I went with a blue-grey, using leftover paint from our hallway.

The window over the dresser was the freebie I had hanging over The Girl's play kitchen we built.

The hardest part of moving them into one room was trying to cram two kid's belongings into one space.

Unfortunately, the kitchen had to move to the attic.

I hope to find a space for it before she's in high school.

The bulletin board was also already in The Girl's room.  

It was covered in pink flowery fabric, so I recovered it using leftover fabric from The Kid's duvet cover.
 

I made room for both of their toy benches.

The Girl's remained the same. 

I recovered the seat of The Kid's (which was mine as a kid) with coordinating fabric.

(Which will need to be done again because, as you can see, a little girl decided to do some reupholstering herself, and went after it with some scissors.)

I made new curtains and put a shelf over the window for some of The Kid's things.

The bookshelf The Dad made stayed.  

The stuff on the top ledge and the pictures on the wall are a combination of both of their things.

My brother-in-law made them the bamboo banks for Christmas.

They're so cool. 

He carved each of their names in them.
 

The closet is one space, but it has two doors.

Each kid got a side and over each door is a shelf with more of their things.

Remember the coveted armoire?

I told you I'd find a home for it.

I spent a stupid amount of time sanding and painting it.
 The doors had a pattern routed out on the front of them, that I thought dated it.

So I flipped the doors, putting that to the inside.

On the opposite side, now the outside, we trimmed them out for more of a shaker-style.

The Dad made two real drawers where the false drawers were, and now it houses The Kid's folded clothes and all their project stuff.

I used bins they already had in their individual rooms.

 Tin cans covered in scrapbook paper hold all the art odds and ends.

 

The biggest project in the room was the bunk beds.

We could have found some cheap metal ones on Craig's List, but, of course, The Mom didn't want that.

The Mom wanted the Pottery Barn ones that were over $1000 dollars.

Well, I wanted the look of them, but not the price.  

Even if they had been in the budget, that just seems ridiculous.

So I whined and begged and pleaded to The Dad to build them for me.

And he did.

'Cause he rocks.

We still need to find the right sized plugs to cover the bolt holes, but other than that, they're D.O.N.E.!

He made them so that they'll come apart to make two twin beds.

The top bunk's head and footboard panels are both shorter than the bottom bunk's, so as individual beds, one of them would become the bottom bunk's footboard.

The bottom bunk's footboard would become the top bunk's headboard.

The Girl is on the bottom, The Kid is up top.

The wall mount lamps and shelves are something I already had.

So there ya have it.

Problem solved.

A room fit for a six year old boy and a four year old girl.

Who says you can't have five people living in a three bedroom house?

It's functioning better than I had hoped and the two of them being roomies is old hat at this point.

In two years or so, we can give The Kid his own room back and Baby can move in with The Girl.

She's looking forward to graduating to the top bunk. 

I'm looking forward to hauling all the girly stuff out of the attic.

Please see my left side bar for links to all the places I party.