A Boy/Girl Shared Room Tour
I think this may go down as the most promised room tour in blog history. I'm pretty sure I started working on transitioning Ruby and Sebastian's shared room in our two-bedroom craftsman in Colorado over a year ago but it's been such a year of change that some things just needed to take a back seat to others. Like changing all the diapers.
We are one month out from the last night they even slept in this room and are finally sleeping in their own rooms for the first time tonight in our new rental. As much as they pined for their own rooms while sharing this one, they had a hard time when it came to sleeping alone at night. I loved knowing they took comfort in each other's presence, even if it was only before bedtime!
The kids started out in this room with two twin beds but we switched them to bunkbeds soon after Brett got home from his deployment to give them more floor room to play without stepping all over each other. We also thought we might have to add Smith's crib to this space but managed to keep him in our room for the time we had left. We went with the natural wood bunkbed from ikea and while it fit our budget and the kids love it, one of the slats broke the week after we put it together and it just feels like it might not make it through another round of rough housing.
Despite it's prefab limits, it did fulfill our kids' wildest dreams to sleep in a bunk bed and it really opened up the once crowded room. It was a great option for our temporary situation and now resides in Ruby's room where it is likely to be used for a bed/hideout combo.
Smith wasn't crawling when we were here but he loved to lounge in the pouf from Target and roll around on the rug while one of us read a story to the big kids at bedtime.
I covered the dark wood built-ins with blueprint copies that I hand drew. You can get the specifics in this tutorial. It brightened their small room instantly and made it feel more modern. We don't have any built-ins in their rooms at our current house but I may do something similar to Ruby's closets.
I wanted their room to feel cohesive but not overly styled so I chose items to display that worked well with the black, white, and yellow color palette that repeated itself throughout the space.
I also let them choose handmade quilts. I was going to make matching black and white triangle quilts but got hung up after finishing the first one. Thankfully I had another quilt in our stash made from all of my favorite vintage fabrics that Ruby was excited about. The afghan was a thrift store find and is so cozy as an extra layer when it gets cold. The yellow shams are from Target and the black and white pillow is from ikea.
I think it's important to fill a child's space with memories made and this perler bead bowl not only fit that bill but also helped contain some of Ruby's treasures. A good mama friend of ours helped Ruby make one during an afternoon play date at her house and we were both pretty thrilled to take it home! Thanks, Diane!
It was important to me to add a little bit of plant life to their space so I kept a cactus up high where it couldn't poke a curious visitor and a Mother-in-Law's tongue plant that wasn't high maitenance. I also added some texture and repeated the geometric theme through a wall hanging I made back in May. The Let Them Be Little print was c/o Life, Love, Paper and is a great reminder for me when I'm expecting too much.
This side was an ever changing space with two different versions of this gallery style wall art and a place for trying out new storage solutions. The frames are all ikea, the prints are from Artifact Uprising, the metal tag is vintage, the crocheted bow is from Calikatrina, and the rest is handmade. The tutorial for how I saved the woven basket from the garbage bin can be found here.
My take on kids' rooms is that you can help design one that is fun functional for the kids without grinding against the rest of your home's aesthetic. There are ways to compromise that everyone can live with. There are also times to let them have that incredibly loud, clashy, plush blanket and those other items that we were all probably drawn to as kids because letting them express their little personalities through color and print, even ones that make our skin crawl, is valid and important. It's about finding that happy place between introducing want we want for our kids and making room for what's really important to them. Thoughts?
You can find my post on more specific ways we helped our son and daughter share this space over on A Beautiful Mess. I hope it's helpful to anyone else trying to figure it out, too.
-Rachel
Other Sources// You're the Bestest print, RBTL. Bunkbed, rug, white bookshelf, yellow bins, IKEA. Dresser, wall map, afghan, wooden kitchen, vintage. Pouf, Target. Quilts and curtains, handmade by me. Yellow elephant plush, SleepyKing.
