Finally finally finally, despite many obstacles and a complete lack of sleep, I managed to photograph Ike's new nursery/playroom and today is the day I'm sharing it with you -- my fellow members of perpetual renovators anonymous. If you recall, we wanted to get rid of the queen sized bed in Ike's nursery, because who wants to play sleepover party with a snoring toddler in the room? Plus, Ike desperately needed some space to store his growing toy collection. Ok, I desperately needed to get the toys out of the living room, and for the most part we have succeeded. Triumph!

So, without further ado:

Hooray! We're so glad it's done, and it's become an infinitely more pleasant place to spend time.

And a view of the facing wall where we have the changing station, plus a peek at me shooting the room. I really hope I was wearing a bra that day...

Since I'm sure you're dying to know, here's the skinny on how this whole plan came together. The first item at hand was stuffing our giant queen sized mattress in Ike's closet (I can't believe it fit). Then we headed out to Ikea and bought some Expedit shelves and a kid's Kritter table and chair set, for a total cost of about $120.

I have to say the white stuff wasn't my first choice, but finding good vintage funiture for kids is HARD. And expensive. I looked everywhere for kid's furniture, but Ikea really had the best, cheapest selection. And look at all that delicious toy storage.

Now that we had a jumbled mass of mahogany and stark white furniture, the paint drama descended on me like late stage ADHD, or maybe like early onset Alzheimers, or something else really really bad... after mixing up approximately 876 samples, Sanders cut me off and chose Pratt and Lambert's Wolf. I LOVE IT. Have I mentioned lately that Sanders is a genius? He is. Go see him, or email us with your painting conundrums. He can fix them up lickety split.

After solving the paint problem, I scored the antique Heriz rug on craigslist for $160. It's old and has taken a beating, which made it perfect for a kid's room. Plus I've been dying for a Persian rug forever, since way before I wrote this post. Double plus this sucker is ginormous and triple plus it has been recently cleaned, which is HUGE deal for vintage Persian rugs, especially if you're a lazy mom like me and you love to lay on the floor. You can't just steam clean a Persian rug, and professional cleaning is crazy expensive -- it cost the previous owner $600! But if you want one for yourself (and you know you do), Naomi over at Design Manifest wrote an excellet primer on how to snag your own.

It was of the utmost importance that we spend as little as possible on this project, so every single other thing in this room is something we already had: I got the Italian hot air balloon chandelier at Round Top over a year ago and Karly told me to paint it black (that Karly is one smart lady -- smart enough to design a beautiful nursery right the first time around, as in without a giant unnecessary bed). The drummer boy painting was also a Round Top score. I've had the fabulous Klein blue velvet rocker since we moved into this house over three years ago, I scored the rocking horse at a thrift store before Christmas, the stuffed giraffe was something stupid like $3 at the thrift store, I've been toting around the vintage 50s sailboat painting over Ike's crib since May 2005 (the thrift store sticker is still on the back), the mahogany furniture is early Phyllis Morris that we bought in California years ago, and the other toys and artwork were gifts from very generous friends and family -- many of them made by hand.

I did get a few great 20x200 prints for Christmas that I put in here, including two by Jenny Odell and this one by William Wegman. Also, I traded Karly some plates for the coolest sconce in the world, which you can barely make out in the second picture. It's a hand holding a lightbulb and it makes me gigglesnort every time I switch it on.

In case all you parents out there were wondering, yes -- we do have more toys than these. There are two giant scooters parked in the closet (just for the pictures), and although we definitely reduced the amount of toys in the living room, there are still a lot of toys out in the living room. Kids like toys. Go figure.