Our Plank Walled Playroom for Big Kids

our playroom chalkboard

After looking at all the cute playrooms for young children the other day, I thought you might like to see ours for the big kids here – but it’s not cute like those for little ones – although it does have a few little doses of whimsy. This room is definitely for grown up kids.  At one time it was full of legos, building blocks, Beanie babies, and Bitty Baby dolls.  It had white board and batten walls, a blue tattersall plaid sofa, and a large armoire to hold a television, a vhs tape player, and storage for what had to be every single Disney movie ever made since the beginning of time..oh, and Rugrats shows.  But those toys were eventually replaced with video games and dvd’s.  Our children are now older, so that room has had to grow up with them.

the old sofa dressed in a new slipcover

One of the first changes we made was removing the board and batten from the walls and cladding the entire room in 12 in. pine shelving boards.  Actually my husband did it one weekend while I was away at a conference…a very nice surprise to come home to. Then I tried to sell the old worn out Pennsylvania House sofa at a yard sale.  No one would buy it….it was that bad.  There wasn’t money in the budget to invest in a brand new sofa, so I took a chance and ordered the “Friday sofa” slipcover from JC Penney (on sale!)  I had to beef up some of the flattened cushions with extra batting, but it worked like a charm.  The worn out blue sofa is hiding under there still.

closet doors – before

When we built this home, we knew this room would be used by the children, so we had two closets with floor to ceiling shelving built in there.  They hold board games and toys.  All of the wood trim and doors in this house are stained pine.  I finally got brave and painted those closet doors (and the doorknobs too.)  It really changed the look of the room.  Don’t you agree?

closet doors – after

I need to tell you the story of how all this green came to be.  It is very much like the children’s book If you Give a Mouse a Cookie, but for me it is If you Give a Girl a Fabric…

I had found a green fabric that I loved for my classroom bulletin boards.  There was some extra fabric leftover, and I decided to make a couple of throw pillows out of it for the sofa. Well…if my throw pillows were going to be that color, then the wicker chair needed to be that color.  So I spray painted it.  Then I decided that if the chair was going to be that color, the frame of the chalkboard needed to be that lovely green too.  So I painted it.

Next I ordered unlined drapes from Country Curtains.  When they arrived in the mail, I lined them and sewed wide black ribbon on the edge and hung them on a black wooden rod.   Then I thought… hmm..if the chalkboard and chairs are green, the curtain rod needs to be green.  So… I painted it.  Do you see all the trouble that little bit of green fabric has caused?

 

Here is a little closer look at the green chair and chalkboard.

Behind the chair is a good piece for storing all the legos and some of the sports equipment around here.  Don’t kill me, but that dresser was a very beautiful antique pine piece that I painted black (not green amazingly!)  It was simply sitting in storage in the garage, and I decided that it would be better painted and used than left in its old state and unused.  I added new knobs and the label holders in the middle of each drawer.

When Layla and Kevin Palmer from The Lettered Cottage were here photographing the house for a magazine feature, they moved the wicker chair over in front of a door and said, “Pretend that door isn’t there.”  I am only moving it so that you can see how the drawers are labeled (which is probably why they moved it too.)

theletteredcottage.net

That green fabric has caused a few more things to happen in the playroom (beyond the green ribbon on the Christmas gifts above.)  I’ll show you those next time we are here.

Have you had crazy domino-decorating-effects in your home?  Please tell me I’m not the only one!