Big Girl Room

I guess it must be the first child syndrome or something, but with Arielle with many things including sleeping in her bed, we have been very lenient..even possibly negligent just to avoid upsetting her and maybe ourselves. So as a baby, her crib was really only used for naps here and there and for night sleeping a bit but as soon as she found our bed, she never left until a few weeks ago! She had a toddle bed which she barely slept in at night but pretended to sleep in while playing. When Evalie was about to be born, we had gotten very uncomfortable and tried to get her to sleep in her bed but it was tough to not make her feel like the new baby was taking her place. 

After Evalie was born she mentioned how much nicer Evalie's room was than hers. She promised she would move back to her room if it were pink so last week we finally did it. I gave into pink! We bought the final stage in her convertible crib/bed series and got to painting. I was a bit nervous about the "pinkness" but closed my eyes, held my breath and went for. 

 The room had previously been a subdued orange and cream two toned paint with a silly monkey bed set from when she was a baby. It transformed into a toddler room and accumulated a few more pieces of furniture and toys. It became a bit chaotic but "lived in"(or so we thought..) So now we were faced with getting rid of a bunch of her baby stuff and replacing it with a few things that may be a bit more appropriate to a 4.5 years old. 

We set her bed up in our room which made her really happy, emptied out all the toys and moved the dressers into the middle of the room. That took much longer than actually painting. It felt great to get the paint on the wall and see what the antique pink would really feel like in the space.I was afraid it might look like Pepto Bismol. 

The original nursery had carpet and an accent rug on top, changing table, diaper genie and loads of color. I thought it was a cute..non pink room for a girl but this time around, I felt really neutral while decorating Evalie's room. Obviously the neutrals allow the baby to grow into the room and make it easier to change the look with accents, so I was looking for a pink that wouldn't overwhelm the room. 

. The original room...circa 2008

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1. The toddler room..circa 2011

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Although we retained most of the furniture, it looks dramatically empty different! It's definitely nice, but seems very bare. I like it though. The bed rails conversion kit was a bit pricey from Roberto at Casa Kids but I was pleased with it when we put it together. The twin bed gives her so much more room to roll around and I can even sleep in there too.