CondoV2.0: Playroom & Pictures

Like any good pregnant woman I am feeling that whole "nesting" urge. Of course it's a little different with our second since we've already got a nursery of sorts set up and no additional bedroom for the little one. So the whole getting ready bit just consists of rearranging some stuff in Lily's room. There's not a ton of new furniture to buy, rooms to paint, etc.

However, why let that stop me? I decided instead that there are 4 billion things that need to be done RIGHT NOW! BEFORE THE BABY COMES! Some of these items I've been wanting to do for like 2 years - so clearly they're not dire. But there's no excuse quite like a new baby to get things moving along.

The first thing that we tackled was the "playroom". Our condo has this little room that's too small to be a bedroom or guest area. It sort of lends itself naturally to being an office, and that's how it started out. Slowly as Lily grew it morphed into an office/playroom. I ended up getting a computer armoire so I could stuff all of my stuff into a closed off space. Now we've moved that armoire out of there altogether (into the bedroom, that's another post, hopefully) and just given up the whole space to Lily and eventually Baby Koi too.

Putting it together was a lot of fun - involving a trip to the container store, more Elfa shelving, bins and boxes of all sizes and wall decorations from the Land of Nod. I love that there is actually a place to put everything now and that Lily can reach most of it on her own. Clean-up time is much easier now and she seems to be getting more use out of her toys. She LOVES this room. I can't tell you how many times a day she says to me "Mommy? Come play in my playroom?" As much as I fantasize about not living in a condo someday I will be sad to take Lily away from this room.

And now some photos:

First the view from the doorway, showing off the new Elfa shelving:


Here's what it actually looks like at any point, complete with toddler:


The other wall, with kitchen area and easel:


My favorite new purchase - from Land of Nod:


Gordon loves using the easel for teaching.
Anyone spot what's wrong with the cow?


View from back corner.
How cute is the new art-hanging set-up?
Also, those shelves used to hold my "office stuff" HA!

In that last photo you can kind of see into the hallway. Oh what's that you ask? A nice photo display on the wall? I can't tell you how long I've been planning this "photo wall" and how excited I am to finally have it hanging up. We received the frames as wedding gifts nearly 4 years ago and they've been sitting in our laundry room ever since. In my defense I was held up by the fact that I needed one more specially sized frame (the long one with 5 4x6 photos) and Pottery Barn was no longer carrying it. Then one day I got lucky and found it in a store (on sale!). That was last year some time. The next thing holding me up was choosing photos. And really, that's not such a big deal - because I can ALWAYS CHANGE THEM!

So Gordon and I finally sat down, picked out some pictures, had them printed and framed then. Then he patiently took my little sketch on paper and somehow made it appear up on the wall. He did a great job with the hanging! See for yourself:

In this one you can see the newly-organized entry-area too, sort of:


Nice view of just the pictures.
It's easy when you've got material like Lily and her cousins!

Coming up: Kids Room and Master Bed/Bath