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Rearranging V’s Room

By Dawn Sailors In Second Bedroom

The first time I was pregnant, I remember my best friend, Sarah, asking me if I was nesting. Followed with the sardonic comment “I can’t even imagine what that would look like for you.”

Too true, Sar. This time around, I’m totally in full on nest-mode. The problem is that since I don’t know whether this new babe is a boy or girl, I refuse to start planning the nursery yet. Seriously, I don’t get the whole ‘let’s wait and be surprised’ thing, and could never ever plan a nursery in neutrals. (If you’re unfamiliar with my love of color, stop by sometime, or just check out my home tour here.) If that’s your thing, I applaud you. You have more patience than I!

Luckily for me though, even though we won’t be able to find out what we’re having for another month still, I already have one little girl who excitedly let’s me do whatever I want to her room. So it’s become my official ‘nest’ for the time being. :) That’s right, even though we just moved her into her new room a few months ago, I’ve already managed to totally rearrange everything and even add a few new things to the mix too. Here’s what the space used to look like:

And I liked it, but there were some issues. Even at the time, I mentioned that I had some thoughts on making it more functional for her. For example, The room is pretty small, actually the smallest in the house, and it was hard to fit all her furniture in there. So the dresser drawers weren’t exactly convenient to open, being so close to the bed. And we couldn’t easily close the curtains, which we use for Also, there was just no floor space (aka play space) to speak of with this arrangement. Finally, we knew even back then, that we wanted to add another little bambino to the mix in the near future. Being a fan of using what we have, I was already thinking of snagging that low dresser to use in the nursery again, since it made such a convenient changing table for Vera when she was small.

So with all that in mind, I went to work on V’s new room. Again. And here is where we are today:

You can see that the doorway is much more open now. It’s not quite as noticeable in photos, but before when you walked in you ran into the end of the bed, now there is quite a bit more room, which makes the room feel larger.

You can see how much more open the room feels without the long, low dresser taking up so much floor space. This guy is actually the other dresser from that old set (it was my grandmother’s and then mine in my first apartment), and has been hanging out in the guest room forever. I do miss the aqua color of her old dresser, so I’m pretty sure this one will get a fresh coat of paint in the very near future. I’ll keep you posted. :)

I’m missing the fabric banner from the foot of the bed, but Vera had a habit of playing with it and actually broke it. So mending that is on my to-do list as well.

 

Another change I love is that I brought in the floating shelves that used to live in Vera’s nursery for above the dresser. They fit perfectly in that space and add some much-needed vertical storage and visual height to the room. The small bookshelf that was in this corner now lives across the room- but we’ll have to see how permanent that is. I’m debating stealing it for some closet storage at some point and getting a proper bookcase in here instead. Or possibly building some floor to ceiling shelves into that strangely angled corner. (Hard to see from this photo, but it is cut off in the corner making a strange little fifth wall in the room.) For now, we’re using what we’ve got and this bookshelf will work for a while.

And as for the curtain issue, The bed is pulled out just enough to allow the curtains to easily slide back and forth. Since it is much narrower than the dresser, I don’t have to walk from side to side to pull them shut or open, and Vera actually loves that she can stand on her bed and open them herself.

I also moved the rocker and hand-lamp into the corner by her bed. They are a little tight there, but work pretty well. She likes to sit on my lap when I read to her at night, and it’s nice that she can just crawl into bed when story time is over. It also keep the chair out of the way for pretty much everything else that happens in this room, so she’s not tempted to climb on it to reach the dresser for example.

I’d still like to get a few more pieces for her art wall, and possibly a fun clock too. I’ve been eying these prints by Bag Fry for a while now, and think the colors and flower patterns would be so perfect for the room.

As for the dark blue color of that wall, the jury is still out. As mentioned in the original room post, the color doesn’t photograph well (paint colors are listed in that post, fyi). In person it reads much more inky green-blue and not nearly so navy. I actually really love the color, but am debating how much sense it makes after moving the bed off that wall. The original goal was to make the brass bed really stand out, and I loved that. But now that the bed is moved, I’m worried an accent color on that wall just helps point out how small the space is. Perhaps blue on the window wall instead? I think it could make the curtains stand out even more and would look great against the dresser once that is painted too. Or the whole room bright and light? We shall see.

So that’s where we’re at with the room for now, and I am so much happier with it in this arrangement. Hopefully soon I’ll be on to planning a nursery too!!