For the Little Miss

Of all the rooms, Alannah's playroom is probably the most complete.  It is fantastic to have a room right off the main open plan area that is designated for her toys and play.  Now she's still too young to be off there all the time on her own but it's great to chuck everything in there and have far less stuff to trip over in the kitchen, living room, hall, etc...

It was originally a bedroom with a north facing window.

However, the renovation plans include the creation of our laundry room/utility that will be behind the wall where the window is.  So first step was to move the window.  A fantastic move because now the room gets absolutely amazing light when the sun is setting (on the days of course that it is not overcast or rainy).

The previous owners had already fit a skylight in the roof so we just needed to open up the ceiling to access it.

The trip to Ikea in June was definitely worthwhile as we picked up the Klippan sofa, Expedit unit, and Lusy Blom rug to finish up the room.  The Expedit unit I'll have to say is perfect for the size of the room and Alannah's age.  She can get in and out of the boxes easily and there aren't any drawers or sliding units to break or catch herself.

Here's our before/after:

 

And Rocky (our dino slide) loves his new home.  As do we.  In the old place we had to put him up on the couch to get him out of the way when not in use!  

Everything else we already had.  Alannah loves playing with the foam mats (as do all the kids who come over) and taking the mats apart are a lot more fun than putting them back together.  A lesson learned is that it takes a lot longer for us to tidy up a mat that looks like ours:

As opposed to these other mats that I've seen at the store:

And there's a lot more smaller pieces that kiddies love the chew (thankfully Alannah never did but most every other kid who has come over seems to enjoy doing so).  So if you're thinking of getting some of these, bear this well in mind when deciding what to buy!

As for the finishing touches we just need to get some pictures on the walls.  I'm thinking a small gallery of pictures of the kids or brightly coloured prints.  And I saw a cute set of decorative flowers in Horkan's last weekend that would be a great cheap and cheerful addition to the white walls too.

The natural light from the two new windows really makes the room a surprise gem we didn't expect and it makes sitting or playing in here great for both kid and adult.