We have 4 bedrooms in our house. Of course there's our huge master bedroom and then the boys room is the size of a standard master bedroom. The other two rooms are smaller. The smallest we use as a game/playroom. And then Ella is the slightly bigger one. At one point in time it was the other way around. Ella was in the smallest room and we used the slightly bigger one for the kids playroom. When that was the case Michael built this amazing clubhouse in the playroom. This is actually the post I wrote about the clubhouse being built back in 2015!
As Ella got older we realized that the smallest room wasn't cutting it for her anymore. The closet in that room is so small which does not work for a girl! So we moved her over to what was the playroom and she just had a clubhouse in her room. Over the years she has loved it. She would talk about how one day she would like to take down the clubhouse, but she would always say she wasn't ready yet. She knew that Michael had built it and she didn't want to hurt his feelings. Of course Michael told her if she wanted it down it was fine he would take it down, but she still wasn't ready yet.
This last year, she really started talking about wanting a bigger girls room and how she was starting to consider taking the clubhouse down. I really let her be the one to decide...I never wanted her to regret removing it. As the months went on she became more and more certain that she was ready to move on.
The week of her actual birthday we got down to business!
On Monday, February 14th, we moved out everything that was under and inside the clubhouse. That was a lot of stuff!
On Tuesday, February 15th we started deconstruction. I unscrewed all the screws I could find and then slowly started pulling things apart. I took off the roofing shingles.
I couldn't get the walls to come apart even though I unscrewed them, but then I realized that Michael had caulked the seams so once I scored those I was able to break them apart.
Ella was such a great help! I had to kick on a couple walls to get them to move so she would stand outside the clubhouse and get ready to catch. It was a little scary, but it worked!
Heres' the underside of the platform. We had to cut a bunch of the Christmas lights, but it was fully covered at one point. When this was first put up we had a Papasan chair cushion under the clubhouse and the kids loved to lay on it and read books so I had Michael add the Christmas lights to brighten it up!
I wasn't sure if she would get emotional at all, but she did great. I think it really helped having her help me and not just showing up and it being gone all of a sudden!
Plus is was nice having all that help to move these heavy pieces out!
Here we were at the end of Tuesday. I was so surprised how demo wasn't messy at all. I had to vacuum, but I'm so used to demo being a disaster...this was nice for a change.
Ella's big present from Ga-Ga & Pa was my old teenage bed that was in their wedding room at their house. They were planning on bringing that over on Ella's actual Birthday so I needed to get Ella's old bed posted on OfferUP and sold.
I ended up selling it for $25. I am a stickler for organization so the Ella and I took it apart so carefully and put all the hardware in a Ziplock bag and then taped all the parts together. It's actually a really simple design.
On her actual birthday, February 16th, we had Family Night. I made Tuna Casserole for dinner and then Ella got to open her gifts.
From her brothers she got a small LEGO friends set and 2 packs of these Sweet Tart ropes that don't have artificial dye. Papa & Ruth got Ella this adorable sweatshirt!
I love my family!
My plan was to have Ella's Family Party that night and then put her new bed up the next day. Well, Pa wasn't having any of that. The guys got right to work and got her bed up that night.
The week before I had ordered her bed from Big Lots...that's where my mom bought all the kids twin beds. They are really reasonably priced. I paid an extra $30 to have it delivered and it was well worth it!
Since I wasn't planning on putting her bed up until the next day I didn't have any of Ella's bedding washed. SO the boys and I missed out on youth group and Bible study that night so I could stay home and get everything washed and put on the bed.
This bed used to be my daybed when I was growing up. When I was getting ready to turn 17 I asked my parents for new bed for my birthday. Mom and I looked everywhere, but I could not find the exact bed I wanted. My Dad asked what I was looking for and I explained it to him. He told me he could weld me one using my old bed. I had no idea how it was actually going to turn out, but it turned out better than I could ever imagine. I loved it then and I still love it now! It's so fun that Ella wanted it and she's so proud of it! :)
The day after Ella's birthday we had to go to Walmart to buy new pillows for bed. Her pillow was smushed and now that she had a full bed she needed more than just 1 pillow. In fact she needed 4 since she has those lovely pillow shams. It cracks Michael up with how many pillows she has on her bed. When we were at Walmart I decided to go to the clearance section and we found these two gray curtain panels on sale for $9!
For the next phase of her room remodel, Ella had to move out of her room and sleep on her old mattress on the playroom floor for about 2 weeks. I felt so bad for her. Happy birthday here's a new bed, but you can't actually sleep on it yet you have to sleep on your old bed on the floor!
It was all for a good reason though. Her walls had so many holes in them from the clubhouse and other various things that had been hung on the walls over the years. It badly needed to have drywall repair done so Michael took care of that. Ella was the most excited about getting to help Daddy paint her room. She loves having special one on one time with him and I don't think she ever stopped talking the whole time they painted the room.
It might look like the same color, but it's a bit different. The color we used before had more green undertones. This new one has more blue undertones....it's Spa from Sherwin Williams!
When the kids were helping me get all the stuff out from the basement and put in the shed we took out my grandpa's dresser that was stored in there. This used to be Peepaw's! Peepaw and Ella share something very special....their birthday! Ella was born on what would have been Peepaw's 90th birthday. Sadly he passed away when he was 88 years old. I know he would have loved her to pieces and I know that one day he'll get to see her and he'll smile at her and say..."Sakes & Days!"
Uncle Ry had wanted this dresser after Peepaw passed, but he didn't have anywhere to store it so we offered to keep it in the basement. Fast forward a few years and Uncle Ry decided he wasn't going to use it so we just held onto it. When Ella saw it she knew she wanted it in her new bedroom. It was so dusty! Zeke and I gave it a good scrub and shine and I installed new knobs since it was missing one. You can see on either side of the dresser the millwork. That's something we completely changed out downstairs last year so now as we are going room by room upstairs and installing new millwork too. Ella's room was the first one upstairs to get it.
On this particular weekend Ella and Jack were staying at the Kuch's house for a sleepover so it was fun to get her room all put back together and surprise her when she came home.
Ella's room remodel was our birthday present to her this year. That included, a mattress, sheets, comforter set, a bedskirt, pillows, curtains, a saucer chair, a nightstand and baskets for the nightstand, new paint and millwork. It was quite the present for our sweet girl!
The best part of her room remodel has definitely been how much Charlie has loved it. He's in her room all the time now and she's over the moon about it. He even sleeps with her almost every night!
Ella was so surprised that her room was all finished when she came home. The only thing we didn't want to do was hang anything on the wall yet. We wanted her to be apart of that.
The very next day Ella and I figured out where she wanted to put things. I was so happy that she wanted to keep some pretty big areas blank with nothing on them.
She loves having her chandelier over her chair. It used to be up in the playhouse, but it made it really hot up there so she barely used it.
Her saucer chair was such a hit that we ended up buying another one for down in the living room. Her nightstand is the cutest thing. I knew we needed something smaller than the drawer nightstand she had before, but I didn't want to spend $100. I ended up finding this on Amazon for $18. It's basic, sturdy and was easy to put together. I bought the baskets separately on Amazon for more than the nightstand, but it makes it more functional.
Ella loved the gallery wall that was in her bedroom before so we recreated it on the other side of the room above Peepaw's dresser.
She also still has the vanity that my Aunt Maria gave her. It was built by her Great-Great Grandpa. My Dad's, Mom's Dad!
This is the view you see from the hall as you walk in her room.
The last thing Ella got for her birthday was a new afghan. The previous one I crocheted was for a twin size bed and the colors didn't go with her new room. Ella and I took one of her pillow cases to Joann's and picked out the yarn. It took me about 2 weeks to crochet her new one. It's beautiful! I love all the colors together. You can catch a glimpse in the lower right-hand corner of the above picture.
It was so fun to do something extra special just for our sweet girl!
