Happy 2012 everyone! Going good so far? All's well on my end... no natural disasters to speak of yet in this new year! Holler!
More good news... Emmylou has been in a speech pathology program for a month or so now and she's making adorable great progress! A few months ago, we had her assessed for a possible speech delay, as she was only saying about 5 words consistently, and we were starting to worry that perhaps she needed some help. We were right, she's delayed. She's almost two (really!?) and she's wicked smaaht as far as her social and cognitive skills are concerned - so the delay in communication was troublesome to us. But since seeing her pathologist once a week she's got several more words - and they absolutely slay us when she says them! Her tiny little voice is the most precious music to our ears! Seriously, I'm going to take a video of her saying "jooooooouice!" just so you guys can swoon with me. :)
Ahh... happy Mama.
Anyhow, let's get down to biddness! Playrooms!
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| Tambourine! |
We live in a one-freaking-hundred year old farm house. To say that we are tight on closets/room/storage in general would be a negligent understatement (people, my sewing room is in our laundry room). The bulk of the actual 'space' in our house is in the unfinished attic (that has like, 12 foot ceilings - helloooo, master suite!!?!), and in the partially finished basement. Our living room, dining room, and kitchen are pretty small. Cute and functional, but small. And they're FULL of Emmys flotsam and jetsam. So with her second birthday approaching we've realized that she cannot receive one more toy/book/thing unless it has a place to go besides under the couch or in the bathtub. So we're putting our responsible adult pants on and changing the basement from what currently looks like a college frat house (we literally have Tool posters on the walls and coins glued to the floor ala Empire Records) into a playroom for the Emski! There is a TON of usable space down there and it would be much better served as a place for her than it is for guitars and beer cans and karaoke machines, amiright?
The basement is finished enough to get right to it, so all we need is some good storage and some delightful accents! Here are some of my inspiration rooms thus far:
First things first - we are going to get two (three?) of these Expedit book shelves from Ikea. They are the Holy Grail of storage solutions. Then I can hit up HomeGoods for all the lovely baskets my heart desires.
Books, toys, more books... Perfect!
Here's another room with Expedit units, two of 'em!:
Now that's what I'm talkin' about! So much storage, and yet they don't take up much floor space. Win win. I'll take 3, thankyouverymuch.
I love the idea of having a swing in the basement! I think Emmy's a tad too young right now, but in the future I can see this being really fun:
And see that HUGE map there? I love that too! But maybe just a US map for now - I don't see us setting off to tour Switzerland any time soon. I realize that a world map has wonderful educational purposes, but she's not even 2. ;)
Here's another playroom with a swing:
So cool.
We also want to have a cozy place in the playroom, for movie nights and book reading and spontaneous cuddling and such. Here are a few adorable inspirations for such coziness:
Hey, another world map!
I LOVE the storage in the above room. It's a whole wall of cozy organization. Ahh...
Ok, wow! That's enough for now!
Stay tuned for Part II!
Much love!
LOVE! So glad to hear about Em's speech progress. I was actually thinking about you this morning when I was making my coffee and sent myself an email to look back in my messages for your number so I could send you a text to see how she was doing. We have a swing in our house - it's a doorway set up. We have a trampoline inside too. They started as therapeutic for D, but everyone loves them. Ikea has super cheap swings too. I say do it. And she's not too young! She'd love it. I can't wait to see what you come up with! XOXO
ReplyDeleteAwesome Kim!!! I love that you have a swing AND a trampoline! Ha! Yeah, Emmy's really coming along. I think the biggest change we've seen is her confidence... she's a lot more willing to *try* to say something than she ever was. Still 'dropping language' though, but less and less. I'm proud of her. :) Happy new year to you and the fam! Tell everyone we said HI!
DeleteIt is amazing how much stuff kids acquire. I'm hoping we can finish our basement in the near future to turn into a play room. A swing in the basement would be awesome!!
ReplyDeleteHa ha ha! Empire Records! Is it weird if I was JUST thinking about that movie the other day? Probably.
ReplyDeleteWe live in a 110 year old Victorian. While we have enough closet space, etc. the problem is more updating! Blech. When we moved in almost 5 years ago the walls were ice cream colors. Seriously. Go check out the hallway ceiling on the second floor--it's still a shade of weird orange. ;)
Lol! That's awesome - Empire Records is sort of on constant loop in my head!
DeleteIce cream colors, nice! I say leave'm! :D