Goodbye Mother Goose, Act 4

Then a new bed for Cate, with a cool canopy and a play area underneath. Cate's bedding is the Fabler Prickar line, the storage is the Trofast line, and the bed is Kura.

God I love IKEA. We got all the bedding and storage units there. We looked there for bunkbeds, but the ones we liked didn't seem super sturdy; I am happy with the one we found at a local furniture store. But everything else is IKEA and seems to be durable enough for 3 four-and-half year olds, which says a lot.


New light, old shelf (a custom job by Grandpa), and a few more odds and ends. The clutter on the shelf, particularly all the electrical cords, is driving me batty. If anyone has a good idea about how to hide/camoflage them, feel free to share.

This is were we put the next days clothes......

........jammies and buddies live here......

Still to do: recover/replace the rocking chair, put the window curtains back up (or possibly replace them), new curtains for the play area under Cate's bed (I'm thinking an open, "puppet theater" type window would be cool), some kind of "tent door" on Cate's canopy so she can have privacy and put up high shelves on the walls above Cate's bed for "off limits" stuff. And maybe paint the floor. We'll see. I promise more pictures when it is all finished!

Goodbye Mother Goose, Act 3

Then I gave Ava a hanging clothing holder, trimmed it to fit and attached it to the mattress slats for the top bunk, to hold her treasures. Some new bedding (IKEA Fabler Kalas).....


.....a light and her name.......


...and the piece de resistance: a curtain! I mounted it to the underside of the top bunk using an aluminum ceiling track. I have to admit I really like how the "windows" turned out! They are covered by flaps of fabric that can be pinned back (I used buttons and rubber bands, see pics below) or left down, depending on ones mood. They love to play house with them.


Then a curtain for Jack. We used a flexible PVC ceiling track for this one, and the curtain glides without a hitch; I like it so much I am going to replace Ava's. It was surprisingly easy to install; only a few tense moments where Brian and I were tempted to throw tools at each other.

Goodbye Mother Goose, Act 2

So we slowly began revamping the room. It's about 75% complete at this point; but I figured I should get some pictures up as my mom has threatened to kill me if I don't. It started when we finally decided to ditch the cribs/daybeds and buy a twin/twin bunk bed. The "rules" say you shouldn't do this until the children are 6, but as they are already swinging from the monkey bars and shimmying down the swings we figured they would be okay. So we had the bunk bed and then a mattress on the floor (I'll leave it to you to imagine how much I loved that arrangement. I think mattresses on the floor just scream SOPHISTICATION, don't you?).

Anyhoo, we played musical beds for a while, but then it became too much of a nightly ordeal, so I assigned beds. Jack is in the top bunk, Ava in the bottom bunk, Cate is in the single twin and the trundle (also known as "the drawer") is reserved for the occasional guest. Much weeping and wailing ensued. What to do?

I had an idea to make each bed into a special niche for each child; a place where they could hole up and have a moment of privacy, a place to keep their treasures, a place that was really THEIRS and theirs alone......I began with a window box affixed to the foot of the top bunk, a place for Jack to store his treasures.....

Some new bedding (IKEA Fabler Resa) and I recycled the alphabet cards we had up to spell out his name.

Goodbye Mother Goose, Act 1

Shortly after the babies were born my mother painted a wonderful mural of Mother Goose on one of the walls of the nursery, and additional smaller murals on the other walls. We added simple white slatted cribs (which later converted to daybeds), touches of black and ivory, especially gingham, as well as a smattering of vintage accessories (lights, mobiles) and a comfy rocker, elegantly draped (like that?) with a vintage cream candlewicking bedspread. It really was a magnificent room, just what I had envisioned when I pictured my dream nursery for my miracle babies. But babies grow up and before you know it they are toddlers, and then you turn around and they are preschoolers and the whole Nursery Rhyme theme is just....so.....BABY. And we are not babies any more. We are BIG KIDS. Sigh.

Polka Dot Mountain - The Lyrics

Polka Dot Mountain
Up to a flag
There goes a hot dog!
It climbs up the flag to get
Sooooommmmmeeee mustard!
Here comes a man
Who doesn't have anything.
Taaaaa-daaaaaaa!
(Now you clap)

Coming soon to a radio station near you!

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