Before and After: Playroom Redesign - The Big Picture

Today's Agenda:  Finally posting about one of my favorite before and afters to date! 

I recently finished putting the final touches on the redesign of a playroom!!  Last summer I was fortunate enough to work on this family's home office and this summer I was thrilled when they called to see if I would be up for re-designing their playroom.  I mean, who wouldn't be up for designing a playroom???!

But this isn't just any ol' playroom...in this family's Capitol Hill rowhouse, they have a great space at the top of the second floor landing area between the bedrooms.  The goal was to make the space BOTH a fun place for their little tike to dump out all of his toys on the floors that they could later clean up easily AND a place where this couple could cozy up on the couch with a glass of wine and the latest Mad Men episode.

So, off I went to reconcile these two ideas...a few more facts about this mission:

-- Keep the wall color (a lime green; great paint job and fun color).
-- Add storage for toys.
-- Get rid of the two mismatched chairs (one a desk chair...i know, it happens) and find a comfortable, small-ish, child-friendly sofa.

I was bad about taking for real before pictures but captured these post-sofa purchase and post-built-in installation photos so you can get the idea of what this space looked like just before I came in and did the installation of everything else...

Basically, lots of unused spaces -- see that nook to the left?? Perfect for bedtime storytelling.  What about the fireplace that is bricked in?  Hello, chalkboard paint!

 And we needed to streamline patterns and art to make it more purposeful.  (I think i use the word "purposeful" a lot...but I mean it and am sincere about it...so I will continue to use it)

Here's that reading nook!  Curtain was already there and had seen better days, especially since there are pretty decent, inexpensive curtain options out there. And sneak peek of built-ins with the bins we bought but pre-styling...

I wanted to cover up the books too -- the built-ins are so functional but end up looking a little cluttered when you are trying to wind down for the evening.

 This is the sofa we found!  Perfect size.  Great color.  Durable fabric.  And affordable price.  Met all reqs!!

This is a "during" photo.  Before I start installing I always remove everything from the room to have as much of a clean slate as possible.  Then I add the things I want to include piece by piece.  Try it at home when you are cleaning and rearranging!  It makes results that much better.  And a good chance to clean in all of the nooks and crannies you never get to.

Ah, the window has been freed from the orange!!  So much more light!  And great place for spying on neighbors :) I mean, daydreaming...

OK.  Now that you have seen before.  And during.  Are you ready for after??

Here it is.

 Let's do before again, because it's just fun.

And, my favorite part of the room -- the revived reading nook!

And, before of the nook!

Did we meet our goal for a place to store toys and a place to watch Mad Men??

Here's the storage...

And the Mad Men viewing area! 

 

Found a solution for a place to set a glass of wine @ night and coffee @ day that's out of the way just in case lil' tike comes back out while they are watching TV and then won't knock it over...and some task lighting that's out of the way and can be directed in case one person wants to watch TV and the other read. You know that happens. 

I'm really happy with how this turned out!  And we did it on a budget.  More details tomorrow about, well, all the details...(I'm trying out some fun things with Photoshop so stay tuned...).   Come back and check it out!