Home Tour Tuesday - Playroom

Today I’m sharing one of my favorite rooms in the whole house.  I know I say that a lot, but I really do love each and every room so much!  I love this one because it’s so bright and cheerful.

The playroom is located on the second floor of our house and it is in a big open loft area at the top of the stairs.  Because it’s so exposed, I knew that I wanted it to look especially great since we can’t hide it behind a closed door.

When designing the playroom I knew I wanted three main components – functional storage, minimal (but comfortable) seating, and lots of color. 

When the time came to search for functional storage, I knew I needed to look no further than my beloved Ikea.  However, we don’t have one in our area, so Brian and I took a day off from work, rented a Suburban, drove to the nearest one in Atlanta, and loaded up on everything that we could possibly need since we knew that there was no going back anytime soon.

The storage cube system, baskets, wall frames around the TV, and white ledges above the couch are all from Ikea and I love every single one of them.  I could sing the praises of Ikea and their genius products all day long, but I won’t.  They’re not even paying me for this post, but I’m now thinking that maybe I should send them a bill.  ;o)

The only thing I dislike about the baskets is that you can’t see through them to know what’s in them, so I whipped up some labels.  Since the kids couldn’t read when I made them (Jacob can now read to some extent), I drew some pictures to indicate the contents of each basket. 

And don’t hate on my Mr. Potato Head drawing.  Hehe. 

The artwork around the TV is all original by Jacob and Olivia.  I adore artwork, and what’s better than original pieces made by the tiny humans that you created?  ;o)

The Las Vegas poster is very special because it’s one of the first gifts that I ever gave to Brian when we were dating.  He had just moved into his new little house with a cheerful yellow kitchen, and there was a big wall to the left of the refrigerator that desperately needed a wall hanging.  Las Vegas is our very favorite place to visit (we used to go there every single year before we had kids), so I knew that I had to have this poster the second that I saw it.  I had it framed, and the rest is history.  It doesn’t really go with the rest of our décor anymore, but I just couldn’t bring myself to not hang it somewhere in the house.  Since it’s so bright, I thought the playroom would be the perfect place, and it turns out that I was right!

The curtains are from Walmart of all places.  Is it just me or have they started becoming a little more Target-like lately when it comes to fashion and home décor?  The banner over the window was made by yours truly… you can see my tutorial here. Just keep in mind it was back in my pre-Silhouette days.  I finally received one from Brian back in December for our anniversary, but I have yet to use it!

The love seat is from the original set that we purchased for our living room when we moved into our house six years ago.  I, however, quickly realized that I didn’t want red couches in the living room because they made the room too dark, so we purchased some sand colored couches for the living room and then had to figure out what to do with the red set.  We ended up moving the red couch into our front sitting room, and the red love seat up to the playroom, and I could not be happier with their new homes.  They are just perfect for the two brightest rooms in our house!

The wall above the love seat houses our beloved collection of frames from all of our travels.  I’m not going to elaborate on this because this post is already so long, but I will be designating an entire post to these in the near future, so hang tight! 

Finally, the ball pit.  This is the single best gift that we’ve ever gotten for either of the kids, aside from their Hot Wheels Garage.  We bought this pool on Amazon along with two sets of these balls to make a ball pit for Jacob’s second Christmas.  He has loved it ever since, and his love for it has clearly rubbed off on his sister.  Every time we go upstairs the first thing they both do is run and jump in the ball pit.  It’s also the ball pit in which they play the game of “Accidents” that Jacob made up.  Lol.  You can read more about that here if you're so inclined.

I really feel like we achieved everything that we were wanting in a playroom and it’s a design that will grow with us for many years to come.  I hope you enjoyed our little tour.  I’ll be back next Tuesday to share our master bedroom.  And in case you missed any of the other rooms, you can check them out below.

Front Sitting Room 

Formal Dining Room 

Living Room 

Kitchen 

Guest Bath