{Small Spaces} D and D's blue room

Among all the rooms in the home, the child's room is probably the one that witnesses the most changes across the years, as the little people that stay in them grow up, change their preferences, and conquer their milestones. Today, we get to witness how a tiny room gets transformed to become a cheerful little haven for two boys, and I'm glad to have Rachel to share this transformation of her sons' room with you. 

Rachel's a really crafty mum, and here's how she describes herself:I’m a mom to two young boysand I run my online shop – Scrappin’ Love from the comfort of our home. I am aWork-From-Home-Mom, who is particular about the degree of tidiness andcleanliness in the house. No mess can be tolerated, and a dusty floor alwaysbothers me. Besides being the housekeeper, I blog about my life at Rachel's Live Journal and I'm pretty obsessed with paper crafting!

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We’ve stayed in this cozy nestof ours for close to a decade. Out of the rooms we've had in our tiny apartment,the children’s room has had the biggest degree of transformation through the yearsever since we moved in. I like to call this room – The Blue Room.

Our Blue Room was once an emptyroom, with just the walls painted blue and the ceiling white, coupled with awindow blind to block out the sunlight. When we were expecting our firstboy, Dylan, a cabinet and a baby cot entered the room.

As Dylan grew taller andwith his baby brother on the way to join us, we ‘upgraded’ him to a single bed andshifted the baby cot into our master bedroom. The once un-barricaded windows were decorated with window grilles (the result of us giving in to our parents' continuous nagging about the safety of the kids blah blah blah).

Anyway, our second boy Devan,bunked in with us since birth till one fine day his papa dearest declared thatit was time to send him to his ‘rightful’ room. And off our 8 months old babyleft our room and migrated with ease into the Blue Room and boy was Dylandelighted to finally have someone to accompany him while he sleeps. It was thenSeptember 2009.

For the next 32 months or so,Devan slept in the baby cot beside his big brother’s single bed, until it was nolonger safe for him to stay in it without having the risk of him falling overthe railing. We converted the baby cot into a toddler bed, and he was simplyover the moon to finally have the accessibility to get in and out of bedwithout having to cry his lungs out for us to lift him out of the cot. That wasone big milestone for him really! It was then June 2011.

Along the way, we decided tohave a built-in wardrobe at one corner of the Blue Room. A huge plastic storagebox was added too to store big items such as puzzle sets and toys. A standingfan at another corner and that’s about what you can find in their room. Justbecause the room is this tiny, we chose to have minimum furniture and items inthis little space, so that they can move around more freely, as well as to minimize the surfaces for dust to settle on.

This year in August, it became obvious that our six and a half years old toddler bed could no longer withstandDevan’s weight or accommodate his height much longer. Our poor toddler bed hadserved us well, but we had to replace it as it was falling apart.

We started hunting around foran alternative, as the option of placing two individual single beds in the room was not ideal, because we’d be left with just a walking space and that would be sopathetic. We thought of a bunk bed, but the idea was brushed off as therewas a very high chance of "flying squirrels" appearing in our house, or somestunt boys giving us heart attacks.

After weeks of pondering,surveying and discussion, we finally settled for a daybed set coupled with anunderbed from Ikea. Instead of keeping the walls plain blue, I came up with theidea of hanging banners while incorporating twines and washi tape to make thislittle space more cheery and lively (I’m a big fan of banners and washi tapes bythe way!). And so I dived into making them after the boys went to bed one night.In the process of digging through my stash, I found some alphabet chipboards adear friend left for me many months ago, and thought "hey, this will do great toform their names!". But somehow, there was no alphabet ‘D’ in the pile ofchipboards. In the end, washi tapes came to the rescue! With some help from theboys, we managed to get everything together in one morning.

Ta-dah! This room was onceagain transformed and that was how our D&D’s Blue Room came about, a smallspace that holds big hearts, love and laughter.

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I simply love how such a small thing like adding bunting can cheer up this room, and I love how she used washi tape to form part of their names! The little details do matter, don't you think? Thank you, Rachel, for sharing your sons' lovely blue room with us... do share your child's space with us by dropping us a note at john(dot)jus(at)gmail(dot)com! Stay tuned tomorrow for a peek into a cozy corner!