11.26.2013

lofty ambition: going up!

it's finally time. time to make pretty the magical room of wonders, aka "the playroom/judah and layla's shared bedroom." 

i was pretty pleased with us for pulling off the skeleton and function of this room last january, and was a-okaywith putting off making it pinterest-worthy cute for a few months until i could decide on and get the motivation to do it right. no more! 

and, YOU GUYS, it turns out that waiting was a brilliant move, because now i have gotten the opportunity to team up with IKEA Atlanta to finish this room in style. seriously. this is a big deal that i am BEYOND excited for. if youve been here for like 2 nanoseconds, you know my undying love of IKEA, so the fact that this partnership is happening makes me squealy loco beyond measure. 

i'm feeling very "david after the dentist" about the whole affair. IS THIS REAL LIFE?!?!?!

there are some fundamental challenges to solve in this room from the get go:

1. STORAGE: there is no closet. because the kids sleep in there. 
2. SPACE: this room is not big even for a single bedroom. at about 110 square feet, we're going to need some magic to make it a pretty and functional multi-use room for active and growing kidlets

so before i even set foot in IKEA, i knew we'd need to DIY ourselves some vertical space. i've said it before,  but the maximization of vertical space is my love language. our house may be tiny, but it has vaulted ceilings. so how can we use this to our advantage in the kids' room/playroom?

let's find out together, shall we?

BEFORE:


 as you walk in, this wall is to your immediate left. a good 8 feet of vertical NOTHING. that's a LOT of space the tiny little 3 foot minions could be using.

i decided: WE NEED A PLAY LOFT UP THURR!

so while i was at work one wednesday, i ghetto-designed a plan for that space that would give about 21 extra square feet (not much but a big deal when youre only starting with 110) of play/read/chill area and add some unexpected and unique adventure funk to the boring room.

i had no idea how much this would cost, if jesse had the skillz to pull off the carpentry, or if we would ever finish it (since our kids sleep time is when we DIY).

jesse is wonderbot. wednesday night while i was at girls group he went and got the materials (for $70 total!!!) and on thursday morning, layla had this set up welcoming her for her birthday!

ready, set, everyone freak out about safety. it was like 2 seconds, and this was not the finished product. (we took the fan blades off too after big mommy got stuck in them on her way up the ladder, like some vertical subway turnstile of hilarity. Also I was pantsless when this happened thank your lucky stars it wasn't photographed)

by friday afternoon jesse had created THIS:

can you even handle it? (if not, there are built in handles right there. #awesomejoke)

this joker is beyond safe. jesse and i both got up there and jumped around to be sure it was ultra-secure. we almost didnt come down because of FUNNNNNNNN (and because no one brought up a pee jar).


fun space above, play and storage below. its like we created shelves to store our tiny people on!

little rapunzel (que apropos!!) took the first climb up the tower. (in her polyester nightmare of a disney nightgown that she picked out on her birthday the night before, despite all of my steering her toward way cuter stuff...she may get married wearing this dress)


 let down your HAY-UR!

it must be noted that judah is terrified of this thing. jesse, in a rookie move, taught him the phrase "afraid of heights" and he has been invoking it nonstop against all my cajolings to try to get him up there. at first he just kept saying "there needs to be a rug up there" and i thought he just didnt like the hard smoothness. but now he is locked and loaded with the acrophobia and staying put.

he came all the way up once with (aka ON) me when i threw the iPad and some cookies up there the first day it was completed, but the lil' baby bird was shaking the whole time, his heart all aflutter. so i havent even mentioned it to him since then (cant be giving him a complex!).

he loves the ladder and the jumping-off-of-it-onto-people opportunities it affords him.  he had only gone up the the 3rd step on his own. i would say, "do you think you can get to level 4?" and he'd always say no. well he finally made it to level four 3 days ago, but he has decided that since he IS four, he will wait until he's five to go up another rung. 

mark your calendars: may of 2016 he is scheduled to reach the loft itself.

so thats our first step towards making this room a stone cold stunner. 

we will probably post a tutorial on how we made/secured this beast soon, as well as plenty o' more progress as it progresses. 

dukes out.


ps a million thanks and hugs and free beers to you all for the outpouring of love on my previous post. the emails, comments, texs, fb messages and just general love and empathy i got from yall blew me away and carried me through. hands and feet of jesus, i tell ya.


4 comments:

  1. You two are my heroes!!! Amazing, amazing, and more amazing. What lucky kids.

    ReplyDelete
  2. WOW!!! This is SO incredible, and I'm again blown away at your design and Jesse building it. (I'd like to think he got a little inspiration on the building from his loft bed, though it definitely wasn't as high off the ground, so even harder to build!!) Way to go, Jes! Can't wait to see what you come up with for the rest of the room, Keight!!

    ReplyDelete
  3. WOW!!! This is SO incredible, and I'm again blown away at your design and Jesse building it. (I'd like to think he got a little inspiration on the building from his loft bed, though it definitely wasn't as high off the ground, so even harder to build!!) Way to go, Jes! Can't wait to see what you come up with for the rest of the room, Keight!!

    ReplyDelete
  4. Have you posted the tutorial on the loft yet? We are considering building one, and this one is beautiful!

    ReplyDelete