School Wall

We have this awkward in-between room that separates a first floor bedroom and the only downstairs bathroom.  Sort of like a giant hallway.  A roomway!  It took us a good six months to figure out what to do with it.

Until the kids have flown the coop, it will serve as a schoolroom of sorts.  Some of their homeschooling  is done on the computer, so we decided to have a dedicated area for computer set-up.  It also serves as a spot for Charlotte’s Brailler. 

In a later post, I’ll show you the floor to ceiling bin system set up on the opposite side of the room that holds all of the school supplies.   I’ve come to love this room for all the organizational goodness it provides.  This room (like so many other rooms) is far from finished, as you can see below: 

I can at least show you what we did with the big empty wall in the room. My husband built a long table which I’ll be sharing more about in another post.  I knew I wanted to somehow incorporate a map, a chalkboard, and a bulletin board above it, and this is how we ended up going about it… 

We measured and cut (with a circular saw) a big piece of inexpensive “hardboard” to fit the space and the map and spray mounted the map onto the center of it. 

Our map is a 4’ x 2.5’ Rand McNally World map.  I liked the vintage colors in this particular one.

After applying the map, I brushed chalk board paint on the right side. 

And on the left, we applied the burlap also using spray mount. I don’t have pictures of us applying the burlap but you can imagine.  Spray and press. 

And then my handy  husband made a simple frame using inexpensive 1 x 2  pine.  Otherwise known as “fingerboard”. 

We put it up on blocks to make staining easier. 

I used a “Weathered Oak” stain to make it look old.

My husband attached the board to the frame from the back using wood screws.  And WALLA! 

A custom bulletinboardmapchalkboard-thingy-me-bob!   :)

For the bulletin board, I used the same braille flashcards we had in our last house.  You can read about them here. 

Once again,  the flashcards are a good visual reminder of what we’re all supposed to be learning (yes, the whole family is learning braille!), but it’s also handy being able to take the flashcards down from the clips to quiz Charlotte.  It’s really just a faux bulletin board, since I used stickies to attach the metal clips.  If you really wanted to use  tacks, you would likely have to use cork board instead of hardboard.   Because hardboard is very… hard.   

The verse written on the chalkboard reminds us of how we are to work, and for whom. Fitting for a school room.

The lights came from  Restoration hardware at 50% off!  I’ve long admired them and so happy to have them for this space.

I can’t tell you how thrilling it is for me to be organized again!  After this crazy move, I spent so many months feeling discombobulated.  But now I feel like I can finally let out a sigh of relief.  It’s all coming together…little by little, wall by wall. 

Girls’ Room Grown Up

Two years ago, I posted about our girls’ room for the first time.  Back then, they were all sharing, and still little:  

But now our oldest two are going on 11 and 13.  Too old for pink pom-poms and rag dolls, they say.  So we’ve been doing a little here and a little there to make their new bedroom grown up. 

It all started with these little Anthropologie frames I’ve had for several years.  I used to have the pair hanging in our old dining nook.  They are sweet, but sophisticated.  Grown up!

We painted the walls “Sea Salt”, a Valspar color.  I love the combination of gold and bluish-green.  I found the perfect gold fabric to drape the ends of their beds.  I simply hemmed a yard of fabric for each bed.  Easy.

I contemplated coordinating pillows at the head of the bed, but we chose to keep it simple.  Pillows would have detracted from the detail of the headboard, and taken the focus away from the little framed mirror.  The absence of throw pillows means their beds are quick to make each morning.

Their matching bed frames came from craigslist for $75 a pop.  I painted them a creamy white, and found some matelassé coverlets from Homegoods to match. 

Space is at a premium, so we use baskets under the bed for storage.

We found the bird cage picture hanger from World Market. 

The girls are infatuated with birds, so it was the perfect addition. 

We played musical pets during this photo shoot :)  Here’s Paris trying to get her lovebird to pose on the bed post (it was unsuccessful, as he didn’t want to leave her elbow)…

The curtains we kept simple but romantic with $13 patterned sheers from Target.

I used $2 strings of beads from the craft store to drape the curtains back. A bit of a bohemian vibe.

We used an old cubby to hang above the other bed…

but switched out the original hooks for these World Market knobs to hang their necklaces:

After telling my mother approximately 1000 times how much I liked this particular dresser, she finally gave it to me.  :) 

It’s here only temporarily though.  I’ve been picturing it in our downstairs bathroom.  Can’t you see a sink in it with a wall-mount faucet?  Yup, me too.

The lamp was a thrift store find, and I like the vintage flair it gives to the space:

I gave the girls my “watch dog”, along with the loan of my watches. 

Seems my whole wardrobe is on loan these days.  My oldest daughter is starting to outgrow my shoes.  Like I said, a lot can happen in two years!

I wonder what the next two years will bring.  :)

Mudroom Makeover

Do you remember our kid rec/craft room project?

We had a partly unfinished room in our basement that was used as my craft room when I did craft fairs. It then turned into a catch all room.

So we cleared it out.

I let my oldest son pick out the color. He picked 'vivid turquoise'. And he was so happy to help paint!

After we painted, we added a faux wood floor with peel and stick vinyl tiles.

And now I am finishing up the room with the details to make it complete.

This is a fairly big room. It's the first room we come into from our basement garage. So it was important to have a mudroom area in there as well.

Here is the before mudroom area.

We made a faux wall with old doors, that helped divide the room from my junky craft room area...but that didn't help sometimes because the catch all stuff was starting to overflow into the mudroom area. LOL

Above the bench we had a fun peg board that displayed our boy's art. I decided to move it to another area of the room that I will show later. I had another idea for this mudroom area. :)

Here is the mudroom today!
A much more fun and cheerful area to enter each day!

We took the faux door wall down. But I really wanted to keep a couple of the doors still in the room. I have a thing for old doors! And these doors I scored for around a $1 each from a family member. I got plenty on hand, that I don't know what to do with. But that's a good problem to have.

I thought they would make a great backdrop to the mudroom area.
They were at different heights so my hubby cut one down to make them 'match'. We had to remove the door knobs but made sure we kept the old hardware and hinges on them. They just don't make architecture like they used to. My hubby secured them on the wall making sure to screw into the studs in the wall.

When we made the door wall, I painted them a mustard color and I applied a dark walnut stain to give them an aged look. I think they really pop against my son's vivid turquoise.

The doors made it easy to hang hooks for all the coats, hats and bags.

I found the black hooks at Menards on sale for 89 cents each.

 

We also added hooks we already had on the side for easy key access by the garage door.

The black bench and cabinet I already had in the old mudroom.

The black bench is homemade that I bought at a craft open house a few summers ago for around $25.

A basket doesn't seem like it's complete unless it's labeled these days. :)

The tags were made from turquoise cardstock I had on hand. I cut them out, then added our initials to each basket with twine.

We have 2 K's in our family, so I gave my basket an 'M' for Mom. :)

The black cabinet was a $1 auction find a couple years ago. It was bright yellow!

I added beadboard paneling to the back of the cabinet and then painted it all red as a base color. Then I painted it black allowing some red peeking through. Then I added dark walnut stain (I love stain!). I found the baskets at Michael's for 1/2 off.

I added some new rugs to the area that I got for free with a rebate I had from Menards. So really for this makeover, I spent less than $7 for the hooks.

A fun area to our new room!

More projects for our craft/kid room to come. Stay tuned!

Linking up HERE