This room has taken an awfully long time to come together, particularly given that I think I started planning it in my head earlier than any other room.

A long, long time ago, even before we bought our house, I came across this forest themed nursery with a big old wall mural featured on The Lettered Cottage, and I knew immediately that MY house needed a forest room, too. Luckily, Milo and Gus agreed with me, and plans were set in motion to forest-ify their new room just as soon as they had one.

I turned them loose on Amazon to find a wall mural they could agree on, and they settled on the poetically named “Life in Balance” And then we went to Home Depot, and I let them pick out a paint color (with some guidance and veto power), and we wound up with Martha Stewart’s Saguaro. So those two elements were in place early on and haven’t changed. We put up the wall mural pre-blog; I remember taking pictures of the process, but I think they got lost when a memory card crapped out on me. It was kind of a pain, and we ended up with more wrinkles than we wanted. I think we’d do better if we had a second chance, but there are no second chances with wall murals!

Okay, so paint and wall mural have been the same for over two years, but everything else has changed a bunch of times. We tried loft beds and bunk beds, and I just wasn’t happy with any of it. It’s a relatively small room for two kids and all their legos to share (around 12 by 12), so it was tricky finding a way to fit everything in with plenty of room for SUPER BIG FUN! Which is what we wanted in here.

Once we finally dumped the bunk beds and went with twin beds, I felt like things really fell into place and I finally could see the room as finished. You know….for now.

Okay, so! Here’s the view of the room from the doorway:

We bought the beds second hand and painted them red. There are toy/book shelves at the end of each bed. We’ve had both for awhile…the one you see in this picture came from a garage sale, and the other one is a Cubeicals shelf from Target.

We made the Lego table by attaching base plates to an Ikea Trofast shelf:

The two chairs hanging between the beds are Ikea Ekorre chairs, and they’re responsible for a lot of the super big fun in here. Also they’re a good spot for reading:

The comforters were on clearance at Target a long time ago, so I’m sure they’re not available anymore. They’re not my favorite; I’d love to find something else to replace them at some point. The brown stripey curtains are also from Target and also no longer available. I might get some bamboo shades to replace them, particularly since the bed is in front of one of them now, and it would be nice to have something that didn’t hang down so far.

One of the panes fell out of one of the (original to the house) windows awhile back, so we took this as a sign that maybe it was time for new windows in here. Getting new windows is not much fun, because it’s one of the more expensive things you do for your house, but one of the least blog-worthy. Anyway, here’s one of them (we bought the two in here plus one for the bathroom next door this go round; hoping to replace the other three on the back of the upstairs next year….the front of the house already has all new windows, luckily):

It’s a window!

Between the windows are the reclaimed wood shelves we made when Abe was less than a week old, styled by Milo and Gus with an interesting combination of natural finds and legos:

There are two closets with bi-fold doors on the wall opposite the beds. We decided to keep all the clothes in here to maximize floor space out in the room. We organized the closets awhile back with cubeical shelves and bins from Target. I’ll just show you the inside of the closet from back then ;). (They actually don’t look terrible now, but they’ll never be quite as perfect as right after they were originally organized):

 

Gus has taken up whale making, just like his parents. This one’s name is Michael; Gus drew him himself, then Dave cut him out and gave him back to Gus to paint:

Here’s a quick glimpse of the view looking back at the door:

And of the door, with the sign Milo made to remind him about his retainer:

The newest additions to the room are the hexagon shelves and Hobbit gallery wall:

Hexagons also styled by Milo and Gus. Every hexagon tells a story?

Now to get everything all in one place. For your convenience, because I live to serve:

Sources:

Paint: Martha Stewart Saguaro

Wall Mural: Amazon

Beds, second hand; painted Valspar’s Heirloom Red

Bedding, closet shelves and cubes: , lights above bed, curtains: Target

Hanging chairs, lego table: Ikea

Click on Images for Individual Projects:

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Creativity Unleashed

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Link Party Palooza at I Heart Naptime

Thrifty Decor Chick’s August Before and After