this is your room.
When the Kinglet got a big-kid bed for his fourth birthday, we decided to redecorate his bedroom as his present from us.
It's the first room we've made any cosmetic changes to since we bought the house from my folks in '08. My mother had left it with plastic molding, faux wood paneling on one wall, and textured beige wallpaper everywhere else.
The wallpaper had to come down, of course - along with the walls themselves, cuz it turns out the insulation in there was less than best. So we* re-stuffed them, put up new drywall, and painted them a very respectable wedgewood blue that catches the afternoon light and makes it look like we housed our boy in a room-full of sky.
The God-King made all new trim-work by hand (including the windowsills) and stained it a light, ashy maple.
We also pieced together matching big-boy furniture: we got a free maple headboard from a friend that, as it happens, matches the maple bureau that belonged to his father and his grandfather before that.
The piece-de-resistance is a matching desk that the Kinglet's grandpa made him for a Christmas present. They dropped it off today, and after half-an-hour of heated feng shui debate (I won) we found just the right place for it.
We still have to finish the crown molding (with this heavy snow, the God-King might have a chance to finish it very soon), make some shelving decisions, hang new curtains (which are on order) and some other minor detail-things, but, can I just tell you, putting that desk in there today made something magical happen.
I never got to do the whole nursery thing when the Kinglet was born. We didn't have the room or the money for it. I've always regretted that. But now...
When I stand in the doorway and look at it, I get this warm feeling that starts in my belly and grows to fill my whole being. It's what I imagine it feels like to gaze on a nursery, knowing it's where you'll bring your baby home to sleep. Only I'm looking at the room where my son will grow to be a man.
This is the desk where he'll write his term papers. This is the bed that we'll have to replace when he's 15 because his feet hang over the end. This is the window where he'll stand and dream about all the hell he'll raise when he finally gets out there on his own.
I keep finding excuses to go up there and just... look at it.
Just... look.
*by we I mean the God-King. I don't do walls.
It's the first room we've made any cosmetic changes to since we bought the house from my folks in '08. My mother had left it with plastic molding, faux wood paneling on one wall, and textured beige wallpaper everywhere else.
The wallpaper had to come down, of course - along with the walls themselves, cuz it turns out the insulation in there was less than best. So we* re-stuffed them, put up new drywall, and painted them a very respectable wedgewood blue that catches the afternoon light and makes it look like we housed our boy in a room-full of sky.
The God-King made all new trim-work by hand (including the windowsills) and stained it a light, ashy maple.
We also pieced together matching big-boy furniture: we got a free maple headboard from a friend that, as it happens, matches the maple bureau that belonged to his father and his grandfather before that.
The piece-de-resistance is a matching desk that the Kinglet's grandpa made him for a Christmas present. They dropped it off today, and after half-an-hour of heated feng shui debate (I won) we found just the right place for it.
We still have to finish the crown molding (with this heavy snow, the God-King might have a chance to finish it very soon), make some shelving decisions, hang new curtains (which are on order) and some other minor detail-things, but, can I just tell you, putting that desk in there today made something magical happen.
I never got to do the whole nursery thing when the Kinglet was born. We didn't have the room or the money for it. I've always regretted that. But now...
When I stand in the doorway and look at it, I get this warm feeling that starts in my belly and grows to fill my whole being. It's what I imagine it feels like to gaze on a nursery, knowing it's where you'll bring your baby home to sleep. Only I'm looking at the room where my son will grow to be a man.
This is the desk where he'll write his term papers. This is the bed that we'll have to replace when he's 15 because his feet hang over the end. This is the window where he'll stand and dream about all the hell he'll raise when he finally gets out there on his own.
I keep finding excuses to go up there and just... look at it.
Just... look.
*by we I mean the God-King. I don't do walls.