Playroom Revovation

To all you Moms out there, have you ever felt like toys are taking over your den? Or your house? Or your entire life? Chances are I'm not alone in feeling like if I step on one more Hot Wheels metal car, one more wooden Thomas train or one more of the Little People that I might just have to get my feet amputated. The toys are taking over our lives (I mostly blame my husband) and it is time to move the vast majority of them out of my den. Thankfully, we have two bedrooms on the top floor of our house that we never use. One will continue to be the guest bedroom because it is nice and roomy and the second bedroom is going to be transformed into a child's toy land. Unfortunately I didn't really realize what I was getting myself into when I dove in head first. Here is a picture of the room before I started. It has an ugly floor, blah white walls, ugly baby blue exposed beams, dingy white ceilings covered in glow in the dark stars/planets/moons and the best most hideous part is this secret door (which just leads to a balcony storage space).How could I not be excited about getting rid of these hippy flowers?? The nice qualities of the room are that the ceilings are 13 feet in some places and it has a fantastic balcony. On the balcony you can even see the Rhein River if you stand on your tippy toes.Really the room is great because I can redo everything with fresh paint and then pick out sun bathing furniture for my balcony. Evans can play and I can sit in the sun (which comes out every few weeks)! Richard has even suggested a mini fridge for up there so we can enjoy adult beverages on the balcony in the summers but I might have to pull the plug on that idea. Don't worry, we have already discussed the necessity of a latch/lock put on the top of the door so that no child could ever open the door or window even though I can hardly get the door open myself.

So I know that this might come as a shock to some of you after Evan's giraffe theme birthday party but that is sort of what I am going for in this playroom. I mean, if you perfect something, you should continue to use it, right? :) It has been slow going to say the least. The walls in this room are so grooved that the only way to paint is to use a brush. That's right, a BRUSH. As in, I must do all of it with my one right hand and elbow grease. One day I painted for two hours straight and you could hardly tell. And not only the walls have to be painted but the exposed beams, the ceiling AND the window casings.You can see in this picture that I have half of the beam that splits the room in half, halfway finished. These beams take roughly three coats to make them look decent. I have a sneaking suspicion that I might never be finished. I am almost done with the walls (they are yellow) but I have managed to run out of paint RIGHT before finishing. Back to the german hardware store tomorrow for more yellow paint and to pick out a ceiling paint. I've informed Deaner that he will be painting this weekend on the spots that I cannot reach myself. This is like pulling teeth and he needs plenty of forewarning. I have picked out new bookcases, a new rug and several giraffe accents including a big wall decal. I can't wait to post more pictures as I go. Now, if I could only figure out what I am going to do with the three rather large pieces of furniture that need a new home. Hmmmmm. Stay tuned......tomorrow I will tell y'all about our first day of the new school.