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The Makerista

I'm Gwen, a modern traditionalist who isn't afraid of color. Kansas City.

Making a Home: The Kid’s Space: The Details

I’m back to share some details on the kid’s new space today.  I was planning to just share it all in one post, but I think it might be best to break it up, so today I’ll share the bones of the room and later this week I’ll share the decor.

Obviously the space didn’t start out great.  It’s dark and dingy, and the ceilings are really low.  Sometimes it’s best to embrace what you’re given, but I thought it would be good to go the complete opposite in here.  To tackle the dark, we kept the walls really light (using Martha Stewart’s Bakery Box White) and rope lighting around the perimeter of the space.  There was only one junction box and with the ceiling height we couldn’t afford to loose anymore headroom with a light figure.  A single bulb didn’t seem safe with the kids – hot and breakable – but Micah had the idea of the rope lighting.  The kids love it, and they can touch it without any fear of burning themselves.

My one request for Micah was a faux fireplace.  Even a crawlspace in the basement can use a little something special, and I knew it would be a rather easy and inexpensive thing to create.  Chalkboards are somewhat overdone right now, but they are really useful for kids and I thought rather than a frame (like we did in Xander’s room) a mantle would be fun.

The flooring was the one area I knew could jeopardize our budget.  I went back and forth on just painting the concrete or putting something down.  Concrete would be cold and whatever color I went with would likely show a lot of wear and tear.  We looked at several different flooring options and ended up going with the cheapest thing next to paint: peel and stick tile.  Micah gave the floors a good cleaning and primed them with this.  Then he snapped some chalk lines and laid the tiles down.  We went with these parquet laminated vinyls.  They were in stock at Home Depot, only cost us about $50, and have been very forgiving thus far.

I also like how the flooring mimics the ceiling in color.  Leaving the ceiling open allowed for more headroom in-between the ceiling joists and also meant less work and money.

I’ll be back later in this week with details on the chalkboard silhouettes, the artwork, and some of the toy sources.  In case you missed it, I posted a bit of a confessional as a newbie blogger and some thoughts on beginner blogging and branding here yesterday.  Have a lovely week!


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Comments

  2. House Envy says

    Looks really really good and such a transformation!! I too love to see the floor and ceiling color mimicked and they have come a long way with the look of these laminate tiles!! Love the oversized chalkboard!

  5. Melissa@TheChicDream says

    Wow! What a great space for the kids. I love how the white brightens everything up and the lights along the ceiling are so cool. I'm totally inspired by the silhouettes. I've been wanting to make some silhouette art but never thought about making a pattern with them. Very cute.