We had been renting a 400 sq ft apartment in a house that was once a two family, turned into 3 family house. Our little apartment held a surprising number of people for our Christmas parties, but the logistics of getting our couch in and out of the living room, along with other small place problems, and desire to start a family sent us to look for a new nest. I remember sitting on the floor of our current home, with boxes stacked around me, calling for my Guy's help and realizing that he was WAAAAAYYYY far away at the other end of the apartment and it felt like such a great distance. We more than doubled the size and for two people it was pretty huge.
We had a second bedroom that, for people without children, inevitably turned into a combo of guest bedroom/office/craft room. We had a twin bed, a dresser, a wall of shelves and a desk and a drafting table and my sewing machine. The bedroom took turns hosting family and friends. We hosted a friend back from the Peace Corps for a week as he took some time visiting New York friends before heading to family in Florida. Another friend started a job in New Jersey and was moving from her home in New York and we were a half-way point between the old job/home and the new. She stayed for a month or so. The longest resident of that room was my sister, who moved to New York after she graduated from college in Maryland. She stayed with us while she looked for a job, and several months after she found work, she stayed on until she found an apartment of her own. As she left us to strike out on her own, she gave us a painting personalized with a reference to us being a "Bed & Breakfast". The room served others well, and we were ready for a tiny person to occupy the room.
In 2005, as we awaited the arrival of our first daughter from China, we readied the spare room into a nursery. In the summer, my mom came up to NY to help my sister and I paint the room. Well, my Guy actually painted first. He gave the whole room a softer yellow repaint, over the previous brighter yellow. My sis brought an old school projector from work and we used this as a tool to magnify pictures onto the wall and trace them. My mom created most of the pictures that we projected and we then painted kites all over the walls. There was a figure of a dark haired girl with a parasol and there was a wall with flowers. My mom painted cherry blossom trees, free-hand, and added Chinese lanterns. Around the top of the wall was a red painted, calligraphied,scripture verse. "I will bring you from the West and your Children from the East. I have called you by name, you are mine". I sewed blue curtains for the window and the closet. The fabric featured ladybugs climbing up vines. As ladybugs have taken on the symbol of Chinese adoption - we took ladybugs on as a subtle theme in the "new" room.
The wall of shelves was cut down to just a few shelves near the ceiling, the twin bed was traded in for a crib and the drafting table was removed to add an armoire, dresser and cedar chest. A rocking chair that my mom used, to sit with me, and my siblings, was added to the room. A surprise baby shower held a few weeks after we got word about our first daughter, helped fill the dresser and closet, and I started to pulling out the shoes and dresses, I'd sparingly bought as we waited. Books went on the shelves, bedding was laid out and items were carefully chosen to go into the suitcase for our trip to China.
The cheerful room became our favorite room in our home. The best part of it was when a little person came home into it, and made it really come alive.....both during the day and a night!
Over the years our home has taken on magical qualities - it has shrunk a little each time we had a child enter the home, or one of our girls needed a crib upgrade. In 2008 we moved our Ballerina girl from a toddler bed into a "big girl" bed and found ourselves putting the crib back together. We moved the furniture around and it was perfectly suited for two girls. We removed only the cedar chest. When Songbird outgrew the crib and the the toddler bed reappeared, we removed the rocking chair. One more element was added to the mural when we were in China in 2008. Another girl was painted on the wall, this time a blonde girlie with pigtails.
Finally in 2009, after much discussion and room measurements, we decided that we would like to adopt again while we still lived in this home....and we could physically fit another child. This is not a factor that would have come into our discussion if the child came to us through birth, but since we were putting ourselves into the adoption process deliberately, this had to be a factor. So, in 2010 we rearranged the room once again. Some hard decisions had to be made. In addition to the toddler bed being removed to make room for a bunk bed, one other piece of furniture needed to go. We talked about whose dresser would be moved, and maybe we'd shuffle who used each dresser. Ballerina offered that, if she could keep the dresser for her clothes, she would volunteer to move it to the Living Room. So, Songbird kept the armoire for her clothes and new sister, JuneBug would use the drawers in the closet for her clothes.
We only had one place the bunkbed would fit, and in placing it there, we effectively blocked most of the murals that were on those two walls. While we were in China, another mural element was added to a previously blank wall over the twin bed where JuneBug would sleep. The latest mural featured a mountain with pagoda a stream and bridge over a lake. The bridge listed the names of each of our girlies on it. As it was really the only mural you could see in full, it was nice they were all a part of it.
Over the last two years we added a small toybox to round-up the numerous dress-up clothes for our Songbird and we had boxes as catchalls for headbands, purses, tote bags, and other accessories. Ballerina and Songbird had wooden "heads" on the wall that held hairclips and necklaces. Ballerina started to tack pictures of horses up on her wall. The galloping horses joined decals of the planets that she moved often create her own orbits. Books were becoming a big mess.
The girls' books were stored in their dresser cabinets. Ballerina's books were plentiful and her shelves were bursting. She is a voracious reader and it was hard to keep up with the books she was re-reading and those she moved along to her sister's shelves. She arranged and re-arranged them often, and the sheer number of cherished books was threatening a takeover in our home. I love books - my kitchen bookshelves, my nightstand and dresser all testify to this. I've kept some beloved books from childhood for my girls, and they are ready for reading when my girls are ready. Needless to say, I approve of this particular interest and invested in a bookshelf for Ballerina's books, and I moved it into the dining room.
The only books left to tend to, were Songbird's. Her books were strewn on the floor, on her bed and anywhere else in the apartment. Sometimes she would sit behind the bedroom door and riffle through her shelf and stack them up beside her - then walk away. I would go open the door and find it blocked with books! We had many conversations about treating our books with care and not keeping SO MANY in her bed....it didn't change things. Two days after rearranging the books to suit her usage - the books were a mess again. Junebug shares books with Songbird, and her small collection of ONLY JUNEBUG books was mostly tidied away in colorful boxes near her bed. She isn't fully awakened to the treasures that books are considered in this house - but she'll get there!
The room's walls were looking cluttered with blocked murals and random posters being tacked up in all other spots. Books were exploding from every hiding spot and princess dresses were bursting from the small box that I added to keep them neat. Something needed to change.
After weeks of "pinning" ideas onto Pinterest for my kitchen - a topic for another post - I started pinning beautiful bedrooms and dreaming of changing the girls' room in some way. After the kitchen was repainted and new shelves were installed, I turned my thoughts back to the girls' room. I agonized over the last two years about the special mural that was painted in anticipation for our miracle from China. There was a lot of sentiment attached to that mural - it was special because of the love put into it personally from an expectant mom, aunt and Nana. (In fact, Nana spent two days on her own hand painting the scripture verses in careful calligraphy.) I couldn't figure out how to keep the mural. At the same time, the mural was mostly obscured and not able to be enjoyed.
It took some time, but I took a deep breath and moved some furniture to take pictures and we made a plan. The newest mural was on a wall that was painted peach a few years ago - the mural would not need to go, and we kept the whole wall and its peach color - keeping the shelves and setup exactly as before. The other walls would need priming and new paint. I gave Ballerina the choice to choose the new color. I knew if Songbird chose, it would definitely be pink, and since the bedding choices we'd made in the past would all clash with a girly pink color, I didn't want to go that route. Plus, I knew she'd have no problem with her sister being allowed to make the choice. Ballerina chose pale blue.
My Guy painted a few stripes of sample paint on the wall and we lived with the stripes for a few weeks - with the kitchen being re-done, school starting, etc, there was a lot of other things to focus on. In the meantime, I'd gathered some new shelves and rails for other ideas. Everyone chimed in on their stripe of choice - most often the second stripe "Rain Drop" ranking first or second pick - so we went with it
One day we removed everything from the room except the bunkbeds and armoire. The biggest pieces of furniture remained in the center of the room and the repaint was underway. My Guy did a LOT of priming - the mural had RED and BLACK in it, and it was quite an effort to cover it. As our weekends were busy with other activites the painting took two Saturdays to finish. While we were in mid-project the contents of the room were in the Living Room and the girls enjoyed crawling under the beds - usually storage boxes are under there!
With the addition of the shelves I gave my bunkbed dwellers small clip-on lights to illuminate their smaller, darker spaces, so they have a cozy quiet reading spot. The clip on lights are adjustable and really do the trick. They are from Ikea too - and I got Ballerina's at a steep discount as it was a display that one of the kind employees took down for us - it was in Ballerina's desired BLUE color. The only ones remaining in stock, new, were black.
I opted to replace the hairclip "heads", picture frames and clock in the same spots. The last thing to go up on the wall was a short railing next to Songbird's bottom bunk. I put on it plastic hooks that hug the rail, and are perfect for lightweight items, such as small princess dresses. Out of the dress-up box came the puffiest dresses that were hard to contain, and neatly displayed, ready for playtime. Their close proximitiy to Songbird's bed make her very happy!
Everything was returned back into the room - including the ladybug curtains....though now, I think I might sew something new for the window.
It feels like a fresh, new room, and works really well for the girls. Tiny, though it is, it is once again a peaceful, special, favorite place for my girls to play and read and eventually SLEEP!
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