Goodbye First Home: Playroom

Remember this post from a little while back? I'm FINALLY getting around to showing what we did with that spare dump-everything-here room. We did indeed turn it into a playroom, it I count it as one of the best decisions we ever made. Why? Because without it, during the first few weeks of Beanie's life, I would have gone insane. There's nothing like being able to say, "I'm feeding/changing diapers/trying to sleep so could you just go downstairs to play?" Ah, yeah.

Let's jog your memory. This is what we started out with:

BEFORE

From dungeon to playroom!

AFTER

The new playroom is the place to be. It was pretty quick, easy, and cheap to do, too. Moving clockwise from the door, we have the following:

• Role-play area with IKEA Bygel rod and hangers for costumes.
• Food prep station with grocery cart
• Gears and wheels section with "table" made by pushing two bathroon benches together (they were collecting dust in the attic)
• Chalkboard
• Activity table
• Chest o' drawers with educational items inside

Storage and fun go hand in hand

• Not shown above, we also managed to squeeze in this handyman area
• See that big Babar poster, I got it from Goodwill framed for $5. 

We did so well with maximizing space (even the little chairs come with hidden storage) that this room also holds our exercise equipment and a full set of drums! It actually makes me want to kick myself a bit because it took us this long to make this happen and our boy could have been enjoying it for much longer. Oh, and who are we kidding, us parents like to spend time here, too.