Better than the Pit

William (6), Vera (4), and Silas (2) all sleep in "the nursery" next to our bedroom.  For the most part they have really enjoyed sharing the room and being together at night.  But to say that Silas has had some trouble sleeping at night over the last two years would be an understatement.  We finally invested in a color-changing alarm clock that lets him know it's ok to get out of bed when it turns green.  It helped tremendously! Except that instead of coming into our bedroom to wake up Mommy and Daddy, he is now jumping on big brother and big sister in the middle of the night.  Justin and I are still getting up almost the same amount just to do damage control and put Silas back in his bed.  Poor Vera was clearly exhausted her last week of school before Christmas vacation, and both she and William were growing frustrated with Silas crawling into their beds at all hours of the night and early morning.

 The Nursery

 This is truly a "BEDroom" filled with beds.

 Also lovingly decorated by the children's artwork.

   "It's time," I announced, "to move William and Vera upstairs."  Now, the original plan was to move William and Silas into a "boy room" and Vera in to a "girl room" this summer once school was ended, Silas a little older, and Lea was no longer using an upstairs room.  But desperate times call for desperate measures, so the plans are being expedited.  It is time to convert the kid's playroom into a bedroom in hopes that William and Vera can get better sleep, and what's the first thing you need to do to prepare a bedroom?  Make a secret room in it, of course!  Ok, so maybe we're not in a huge hurry to move the kids, because we are super excited to make this one awesome bedroom complete with secret room, swing, and eventually bunk beds.

 The upstairs of our house has two bedrooms and a jack-n-jill bathroom.  One room is currently Lea's room and the other is the "playroom," which is always kept spik and span... haha.  The playroom will be the new bedroom.

  Above: Under Construction.  Justin was all concerned with the 're-sell' effects of our endeavour, but I assured him that if we ever sell our house, the next owners will LOVE this addition.  Plus, we made access to part of our attic that we had never even seen before!

 Justin has been extremely busy this Christmas break creating "the tree house" (secret room), and I must say that it is MUCH better than The Pit.  I was inspired by a picture on Pinterest of a tree painted on the wall with a ladder that went up to a hole in the ceiling (and in my mind it is a 'tree house room' that must be up there).  Justin and I put our heads together and got to work.  Well, so far Justin has done all the work, but now that the secret room has been constructed it will be my turn to paint the bedroom, a big tree on the "white-board wall" behind the ladder, and finish off the tree house space.
  I wanted to go ahead and share the project now since it might be a number of weeks before I get those things done.  The tree house is already a lot of fun in its current form. 

 

So this is the Tree House Room once you climb the new ladder.

 Already a fun space to play go fish!

 Because every kid room needs a little whimsy.