Tuesday, June 04, 2013

Our New Room!

We moved in our "new" house a little over a year ago and have come to realize that we did a really bad job of organizing our bedrooms and game room.  Now that summer is upon us and it is hot and humid, we have decided to start making some changes.

I must note that unlike many of my friends I lack the decorating gene and we have limited funds, so our "interior design" normally involves rearranging furniture we inherited from family and have had since college.  Many rooms in our house look like the Salvation Army Store or IKEA.  ;-)  However, I am in awe of people like Kevin and Amanda who actually know how to decorate and I love following decorating blogs and pinning pretty images in Pinterest.  A girl can dream, right?

Our house is not what you would consider big and we have limited closet space.  All three bedrooms are on the second floor, and part of the third floor attic space has been finished out and we have been using it as an exercise, office, toy, and guest room.  Translation:  Junk Room.  This is unfortunate because it is a neat space, though oddly shaped and not large, and when I am up here I feel that I am in a tree house.

But there have been problems with using the room as a toy room.  The kids would pull out all of their toys while I am working on the computer, and then I would want to exercise using one of my dvd's and I couldn't even see the floor.  So I would tell them to clean everything up, and by the time they were finished I am not in an exercising mood.

So this last weekend we decided things were going to change.  Translation:  I got overwhelmed with the clutter and threw a major fit (and possibly broke into frustrated sobs) and my husband calmed me down and said he would help me figure out a way to make it a usable, uncluttered space.

We moved the huge third-floor Container Store adjustable wooden shelves (purchased in 1992 and moved all over Texas) to Imp's room for all of their toys.  Imp has the bigger bedroom so the boys will have plenty of room to spread out. 



Here is my poor husband putting the shelves together (and probably cursing under his breath) in Imp's room. I think he has taken them apart and rebuilt them at least 15 times.  This set even has a big desk at the end that sticks out and Imp and Duke have already covered it with blankets to make a boy-cave.  


This is the third floor after removing the toys off the shelves and before any cleanup (the room normally does not look this bad!).  We also have a futon and IKEA bunk beds up there.  I have family that visits and all the kids like to sleep upstairs so it is nice to have the extra beds.  You can almost see on the left that the boys had their original boy-cave in the bunk beds.


Here is the first part of our re-organizing.  Part of the attic space is a little windowless nook with a peaked ceiling.  I had the bunk beds back there originally but we decided it would be a great movie/video game area so we moved the big TV up there.



We used our old futon and bought two bean bags and a shaggy rug and instant movie nook!  Because the area has a low ceiling the sound is really good and we can fit extra people on the floor. Plus I can exercise to my videos behind the couch (see image below).  


Best of all my elliptical is not right next to my bed where I always stub my toe on it, but in our "new" room in a little nook facing the TV!  This area was previously wasted space but perfectly useful now.  On the right there is a big storage closet that is on my list to organize.

Our third floor "bonus room" is now our entertainment/exercise/guest room/office and I am really loving it.  Once I finish my office area I will post additional photos.

We had our first movie night last night and watched Man Vs Wild with the boys.  It was a great evening.  :-)

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3 comments:

  1. I love old houses with the odd rooflines like that - I also feel like I am in a tree house when I visit my friend's house in Pennsylvania like that! The wood details are so great....but most of all I am glad your new room is working out so well!

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  2. Great use of space... I love it! Can't wait to see how your office space turns out!

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  3. Can I move into that toy room? Looks great!

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