Angeline is a working mom with a love for all things stylish, pretty and neat. She blogs at PrincessDanaDiaries where she shares snippets of their fun holiday trips, treasured family milestones and nuggets of parenting anecdotes. In designing this room for their only child, Angeline and her husband envisioned it to be cosy yet functional - a personal space where Dana can spend many happy hours in it and one she can be proud to call her own. Come on in and have a tour!
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| Cosy and Comfy- that's what we envision the room to be! |
The idea for setting up this room came about on Dana's third birthday. The hubs and I decided it's time to reclaim our bedroom and we should give our daughter a space of her own. To ensure her transition to sleeping independently would be as less traumatic as possible, we decided to allow her to choose her own furniture to give her a sense of ownership. So one weekend, the three of us trotted over to the all amazing Ikea Furniture Store to do our shopping and the rest it's history!
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| Come on in to my world! |
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| Hand-painted letters of a child's name gives the room a personal touch... |
1. THE BED
To do up a bedroom, we must first hunt for a bed. While shopping in Ikea, she set her sight on this leaf-canopy bed. It's in classic white, slim enough to fit the room but big enough for her to sleep comfortably. We didn't want to drill the leaf to the wall; we simply secure it with some cable-ties in between the empty spaces in the headboard. A white bedside cabinet complete the bed, giving us added storage space which is used to keep her art and craft materials within easy reach.
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| A cheerful princess enjoying her cheerful room! |
Sharing her bed are a family of Miffy dolls and Annie's dog, Sandy. A girl's gotta have soft-toys. Despite my determined efforts at vacuum-packing her soft toys, the collection just keep growing...
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| Displaying some of the child's fav toys helps foster familiarity and security... |
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| A hand-sewn teddy, personalised with her name sits next to the bedside lamp. This was a gift from grandaunt Pauline. |
2) THE BOOKS
Seated at the opposite end of the room is a white Ikea Hensvik children's bookcase which Daddy personally assembled. It's now bulging at the seams with books which trigger-happy Mommy ordered online from Amazon and Book Depository. This has proven to be the best investment as Dana helps herself to the books and reads throughout the day.
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| Catergorising the books according to reading level - these are her 'baby' books (those we used to read to her as a baby)... |
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| On this row are books she is currently reading as a Preschooler... |
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| What a delight it is to read... |
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| ...under the canopy, in the comfort of her own bedroom. |
3) THE PLAY AREA
We also included some play elements inside the room to make it a fun place to be. There's a Mother Garden kitchen set which
The bookcase stands at the extreme corner of the playarea. Next to it is a column of neatly stacked colourful Ikea storage boxes (for her lego and playdoh sets). These storage boxes are very handy for categorising and rotating toys. Their cheerful colours also brighten the room. Thank God for Ikea!
Another storage solution is a three-tier canvas shelf which we use it to store her drums, dollies and other odd-sized toys. As you can see, there are some soft toys chucked here too (they spring up everywhere!)
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| Keep the room bright and airy so that there is good ventilation... |
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| Use brightly coloured storage solutions to add cheer to the room. |
Dana's favourite activity in the room is to doodle on her Crayola whiteboard placed next to her bedside table (where her art materials are kept). We found it useful to keep her art materials within easy reach as we never know when she's inspired to write or draw. She's writing 'Welcome to my room' as Daddy attempts to capture her utilising her personal space...
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| The Crayola whiteboard is one of the most well-used birthday gift ever. We used it to write messages to each other too. |
4) THE MUSIC AREA
Music is an integral part of our family life. We converted a small study area outside Dana's bedroom into a music area. Here we placed a digital piano and an Ikea Expedit shelf. This shelf used to belong entirely to Daddy but two rows have since made way to accommodate Dana's books and stationery spilling from the Hensvik bookcase.
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| Keeping the music area distinct so it lessens the clutter in the bedroom... |
So there you have it, we hope you've enjoyed this virtual 'tour' of Dana's world with us. It's a small space, equipped functionally and set up intentionally for her to sleep, read, play and make music. I look forward to reading all of your 'small spaces' too!
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| Thank you for visiting my room. |
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Do you have a small space to share? If so, do drop us a note at john(dot)jus(at)gmail(dot)com. And join us tomorrow to take a peek at a shared space!
Love how bright and cheery dana's room is!
ReplyDeleteThe room is very nicely done up and it's spacious! I wish my son can have a bigger room :)
ReplyDeleteI love how everything is accessible and Dana is able to just reach out and read / draw, etc. :)
ReplyDeleteAnd I love how she poses for the photos, so cute!!
ReplyDeleteI love the spaciousness and easy access she has to all her toys and books! such a beautiful space for Dana :)
ReplyDeleteAi @ Sakura Haruka