The Takeover Toyroom

TOY ROOM

Going back 7 years we had this really cool room in our house that we totally decked out and named our "Theatre room". 7 years later it's now The Toy Room. The kids took over. But I'm so glad we have this room because it's the one room (besides their bedrooms of course), that i can just shut the door if the mess is too horrible to look at, which as most of you who know me well... I never actually close the door, I just give in and clean the room. 

So this is the toy room

My girlfriend Amy commented the other day "this is the cleanest toy room I've ever seen!".

But in honesty there are 3 things to point out:

1. It obviously doesn't always look like this, especially not by the end of the day,

2. It's really easy to clean and keep tidy because I have a lot of storage (but I'd like a lot more)

and

3. I cull toys all the time. 

So here is my best storage solution (below). I keep the books up high so Master 1 doesn't pull them out constantly.

The buckets... they store foam blocks, lego, wooden blocks, balls, puzzles, etc. 

I find the buckets great because I let the kids take them out and it's a little game to pack everything back into the bucket when they're finished (or when I loose it).

I've sectioned the toy room into 2 areas. 

This photo (below) is taken from the door. So when you walk into the room this is what you see. Stoage, neatness, a play space (or as miss 3 calls it, "The dance space").

and then behind the couch.... ta-da!

A toy area to make messy & it's a bit hidden.

I put some wall decals up.. just to keep it kid friendly.

The room looks outside into the garden and into our Alfresco. The great thing is when I open the blinds I can see the kids from the kitchen and keep and eye on them without being in the room.

I have the couch in the middle of the room because it's still our theatre room and needs to function as the toy room and as a grown up room when we want. We have 2 other lounge rooms so movie nights are few and far between, but the kids love to watch Nemo or Woody & Buzz on the big screen. Plus I want it to be functional & slightly grown up.

The couches were donated from Adam's late grandmother, they are the worlds most comfortable lounges. :)

I'd love to hear what storage solutions you have used in your toy room to keep the mess at bay.

Natalie

An almost new kitchen

I love my kitchen, it's the one room in the house that's pretty much my domain. I'm the cook in the house.. and the kids (big ones included) only really go into my domain for the occasional fridge or pantry raid. 

So this was my kitchen for 7 years:

It was great for a while, but those ugly black bench tops... oh how I learned to hate them.

Hard to keep clean, who knew black would show up all the dirt?

See how much black?

Soooo.... this year I finally splashed out and got rid of all the black and got......:

TAAA-DAAA!!!!

Reconstituted Stone bench tops!!! 

(Smart stone, Essa Stone, Caesar stone, Nurture Stone - all these  are manufactured from a combination of natural stones, granite and quartz.)

For those of you with the really keen interior eye, yes I also changed the tap, the kickers & the fridge.

AND because Master 1 touches everything the display items in the front display area were all moved. 

I wanted a look where the very open area of our house (kitchen, dining & lounge) just flowed. 

The Black bench tops were a focal point, which I hated!

It all flows much better now.

I totally love it and even Mr. It loves it too... he better, he paid for it all.

Natalie

From Old to New

If I ever want to restore a piece of furniture I don't need to look any further then my in laws garage. They have lots of old stuff sitting in there, which is great for me! It's ok, they're aware of their collection, what can I say - it's good stuff! I've taken lots. 

I was recently inspired to fix up our little parents retreat area outside our bedroom, it's this little area that Miss 3 and I use to read magazines and eat ice cream if it's a nice day.

It's suppose to be for fancy breakfasts with Mr. It in our own private retreat area... but who am I kidding, we have little kids, maybe in 10 years. We did try to eat dinner out there on a warm summer night once but were attacked by mozzies. 

Anyway there is this cute little setting in my in-laws yard, it's been sitting there unused for as long as I can remember (and I've been around for 11 years now), so I asked my mother in-law if I could have it and she made my father in-law pretty much load it into our car that night..... they were all too pleased to see it go to a good home. My father in-law even took the table legs off for easy transport and marked it with numbers for when I put it back together, he's super sweet like that.

Here are the little stools once we cleaned them up:

Mr. It helping again, we purchased an electrical sander which has been great.
Actually he does most of the work, I should give him credit. I come up with the idea, start to execute the idea and he does most of the work. Lucky he's a perfectionist.

A work in progress, we applied 2 coats, getting into all the little grooves took forever.

The final result (pic taken on a cold winters day):

 The view from our bedroom window:

We used Dulux Weathershield Exterior Low Sheen, the colour is "Lost in Space" which is a British Paints colour.

I'm really pleased with the result, it looks pretty from the window, that side of the house gets all the afternoon sun so it's usually quite pretty. I do use the area with Miss 3 when it's sunny and warm, but living in Melbourne, who knows when that could be. I really wish I had a pic of the table before, but I'm sure you get the idea.


Natalie