Fun Children's Rooms

In the fall, I always feel like turning my attention to the inside of the house. We have been working on outside projects with landscaping and painting the exterior all summer, and I need a change of pace. I decided to start gathering ideas for the kid's rooms so we can finish them by this spring.

I went to the library last week and checked out some great books for ideas.

This is what I want to do in my older son's room-- doesn't this look cool? This is from the book, "Kids Rooms, Pottery Barn Kids":

Not only does it look great but it's educational as well!

For my Princess, I would love to incorporate some of these ideas:

I love doing fun things in my kids' rooms, since I didn't have a cool bedroom as a kid. I shared a very small room with my sister. We had a trundle bed to save on space. The walls had gold and avocado flower wallpaper which I hated so I tried to cover it with pictures of horses and posters of Leif Garrett, Shaun Cassidy, Robby Benson and Matt Dillon from Tiger Beat magazine (does that age me or what?)

Here is a great idea that I can't wait to try:

Here's furniture that you can actually write on! So cool! I have wanted to try the chalkboard paint for a long time.

If you need inspiration and great ideas, go to your public library and look for this and other home decorating books. I used to buy these but they do go out of style eventually. It's easier to just make a copy of what you like and keep it in an idea binder.

The Jungle Room

Today's the big day! It seemed to sneek up on me, but I did manage to get this post up today, even though we aren't quite finished. Here's the project we started in my son's room:

I want to point out that pictures don't seem to really do this space justice. When I took these photos earlier today, I noticed that you don't get a sense of the depth of the space. This is the turret room, so it has a nice bay with five windows and a panoramic view of the front yard. It is a very unique space and it is in my 10 year old's room. What we were trying to create was a feeling of being in the jungle, and setting off the space he could use for reading or computer work.

We took two fairly large willow branches and attached them to the ceiling with hooks, and from that we draped all the greenery. Down the sides we used bamboo and leaves to camoflauge the wires that hook up the twinkly lights. The lanterns dangle from the branches at varying heights and they have little electric flicker candles in them which look cool at night all lit up. Here is another picture: So that is all we have finished, since the rest of the room is a disaster, I'll spare you the visual! I am going to try taking a night shot of it lit up and post that tomorrow. Thanks for stopping by, I hope you liked our little 'jungle'!