Last summer we switched Katie Wynn to a big girl bed and made a couple of other little tweaks and I've been meaning to show you her updated room ever since! The problem is that I still don't feel like it's done. But, better to show it now than when she's in kindergarten...at the rate I'm going it MIGHT be done by then!
The first step of changing her room was obviously finding a bed. I was pretty sure that I wanted a wrought iron day bed, but man! The prices were high online. Especially when you added a trundle bed, which was another thing on my wishlist. I did lots of online browsing and pouting over prices when one day, I just happened to see on Facebook a sneak peek yard sale picture that was going to be taking place the next day in my neighborhood. In that picture was what looked like a wrought iron day bed! I held my breath and crossed my fingers and hoped that I would get there in time to see it.
Fast forward to the next day and $100 dollars later, I was the proud new owner of a used wrought iron daybed, complete with pullout trundle bed! Except...it was hunter green. I didn't let that stop me; I knew a can or two of spray paint could work wonders.
I was fine going the spray paint route until I read a blog post somewhere where the blogger had had something powder coated. Curious, I did a quick search and found a place that did powder coating in our area and the price to have my new daybed done would be $100. SOLD! Powder coating would be a much more durable and smoother finish than what I could have done with spray paint and spending $100 sounded a lot better than standing out in the hot sun working on it myself.
Here are pictures of the finish after the powder coating. I chose a pewter silver color that was similar to what her crib had been. Much better than hunter green for a little girl's room!
If finding the perfect bed was step one, then step two was acquiring bedding. I did not want to have to repaint the room or change the curtains for this upgrade, so it was important to find bedding that was the same color scheme that her crib bedding had been - pale pink and white. And our local Pottery Barn outlet had just the set!
I knew their pink and white polka dotted sheets matched because she'd been using a pillow with that pillowcase in her crib for a while. And I immediately fell in love with this pink and white quilt when I saw it in the store. One mattress, two sets of sheets, three european pillows, two standard shams, and five pillow inserts later, she had bedding! (It is not lost on me that she has a full Pottery Barn bed set up while I sleep under Steinmart covers...) My mom made the bedskirt out of fabric we found to match.
I really wanted to keep the tall pink bookcases that flanked her crib in the room and thankfully, they barely fit with the bigger bed in place! It's a tight squeeze but it works for now. I love how the paper dolls fill up the space between them.
Speaking of bookcases, they are part of the room that doesn't feel finished to me. I just can't find the right accessories to style them with.
As you can see from the pictures above, one shelf has just one polka dotted bin while the other has three. That's really hard for my symmetrical-minded brain to accept. But, the sole reason for doing that is what sits on the second shelf (from the bottom) on the left bookcase - this tea set:
The tea set gets played with ALL the time, both by Katie Wynn and her brother! In fact, every friend that comes in her room plays with it at some point. So it would have been foolish of me to move it for a bin just so the bookcases would match.
One of Katie Wynn's teachers painted this Minnie Mouse canvas for her when she became potty trained. She loves it. I think it was sweet, but it doesn't go with the room. :) But, it's on the shelf for now and probably will be for a while since I can't seem to find anything to replace it with!
In addition, we still have small child accouterments (monitor, sound machine) that have to fit on the shelves and picture frames that haven't been updated and a big blank space in the top cubby. So that's why they don't feel super cute to me.
The last "big" change in the room is that we no longer needed a changing table so this piece has converted to just a dresser. It needs cuter adornments too but right now the lamp, lion bank, and fan are doing just fine.
The tiny shoes that sat on the pink shelf in her nursery are long gone, sadly. Right now three McCarty's Pottery bunnies sit there but I think I'd like to get a mini porcelain tea set to go there. Still haven't decided. Above that is still the Barbie gowns that my grandmother crocheted and even higher up is her name, also crocheted (knit? I don't know) by my grandmother.
Flanking the sides of that dresser are two cute baby doll toys she got for her second birthday. To the left is the baby bed that is always full of babies and stuffed animals. I love that my Mom made matching bedding for it.
On the other side is the matching stroller. Or pram, as it was called at Land of Nod. Katie Wynn's other grandmother, Lala, knit a tiny blanket for babies to use!
Her rocking chair still sits in the corner of the room. I'm just not quite ready to part with it yet. Plus, her clothes get laid out on the ottoman every night for school the next day! I think the only change here since I revealed the nursery are the two frames that were added to the wall.
And the wardrobe wall is still the same too, no changes there.
Some people have really cute growth charts in their littles' rooms. Us? We can tell how tall Katie Wynn is by how far up she has tried to erase on this chalkboard sign. :)
Here's a view of that side of the room so you can see where that sign is. It's between her bathroom and closet doors.
So that's how her rooms looks these days. Probably the next time we make big changes to it will be when it converts to a guest room and she moves upstairs! I'm not ready to think about that yet...
