An Elephant Room for Lily
We’ve been working on making room for baby #2 before he arrives! Up until a couple of months ago, our daughter had only been sleeping in our bed, but now we’re all ready for her to graduate to a “big girl bed”. Our 2nd bedroom which once housed the office and random storage will need to be redesigned to be a little kid’s sanctuary. In an effort to avoid buying things we don’t need or that won’t work together, I made a list of all the things I wanted, sourced items to see how much it would cost, and made a plan. Here’s the design board inspired by her love of elephants:
#2 Play and Learning Surface: Ikea set of kid-sized table and chairs. I could sew some chair pads to warm it up.
#3 Bed: She wanted her bed to be pink (her favorite color), but she already has all-pink toys and clothes, and I didn’t want the pink to be overpowering if we ended up putting our little boy in the mix. I saw this inspiration photo from Serena and Lily and knew that eventually I wanted to make her an all-white bedspread with pink trim for just enough pink for her AND Mama to be happy. I also wanted to tie in the color scheme using her sheets, which added some whimsy.
#4 Dresser: A big girl bed should also come with some big girl storage! This is her dresser since she was a baby, and we’d simply move it to the new room and put books on top of it. If we put baby boy in her room, I wanted us to be able to use it for his clothes, instead, and put a changing pad or baby baskets and a humidifier on top. I love having options!
#6 Toy Storage: Love the versatile and nautical vibes of this basket from the Land of Nod. They come in other colors, and I prefer multiple baskets to be different colors so we can color code the contents (e.g. dress up stuff goes in the pink bin, cars go in the blue bin, etc.). A sizable chunk of the budget will go into these baskets, but it will be a good investment for us since even after she’s outgrown her toys, this bin can still be used elsewhere! It’s also durable and oh so adorable. I can even make labels for them with pictures of the contents so that she learns where to put them back!
The color palette is an attempt to use the furniture and stuff we already have, and marry my little girl’s love of pink with complementing strong boyish colors to go with her new baby brother’s stuff without a great divide. What do you think!
