Changes!

A couple months back I started realizing that Ella's room just wasn't working for her. First off it's the smallest room in the house and she a girl! When we first moved her into this room it wasn't such a big deal, but now that she's older there were certain things that were driving me nuts about it. For one thing now that she's old enough she is responsible for putting her own clothes away. However, her closet is so small Michael had to put in two dowels for clothes to hang on and even when she's on a stool she can't reach the top dowel. So that meant that she would always try to hang up all her clothes on the lower dowel which didn't work so half the time her clothes ended up in a pile on the floor. Also since there wasn't that much floor space or even space to move around her room was always messy! Always!!! 

Here's a post all about Ella's room when we moved it from the bigger room to the smaller room. You can even see a picture of her closet set up. 

At first we had decided that we would move her back into her old room...what was now the playroom, but we would probably wait another year or so. Well...if you know me you know that I don't like to wait to do things. I like to accomplish things....especially things that I know will make our home life easier. The only problem was when we moved Ella into the smaller room Michael had made it clear that he wasn't going to be involved in moving a room around for 5 years and it had only been 3 years since we moved Ella. So...that meant I had to do the moving all on my own. I'm nothing if not determined though! ;) 

On Friday, December 22nd I got started. The first thing I did was organized the current playroom since it was a mess. In doing so I was able to get rid of one whole toy bin. Then I moved most of the remaining toy bins out of the playroom and put them in the boys' room. I went ahead and vacuumed and steam cleaned the carpet so it would be nice and fresh for Ella Bean. I cranked up the heat and shut the door so it would dry quickly. 

That's where things paused a bit because of life. The following night we had Michael's side of the family over for Christmas dinner. Then Sunday was Christmas Eve and then Christmas Day and then we all were sick and so on. I think it was the 27th before I finally got around to working on it again. The next phase was taking things from Ella's old room and putting them in her new room. I did most of that in one day....the pretties on her wall came later. 

After getting her old room cleared out I vacuumed and steam cleaned it as well. After it was dry I was able to move the toy bins into the new playroom. 

Here is Ella's new room! This room is really odd because of the location of the space heater and the door and the closet. I didn't want Ella's bed up against the window at first because of the space heater, but there really wasn't another way to put it. I have the bed moved out from the wall a bit and she knows that she can never throw anything back there at all. I make sure I check behind there as well. It's been a couple weeks now and I've never found anything back there. 

Michael had built this indoor playhouse for the kids a few years ago and at first I thought I'd like him to take it out. It is huge and takes up space, but once he told me he wasn't going to help move things I knew I couldn't do that on my own. The more I thought about it though the more I realized it would be just fine....actually helpful to keep it. For one the playhouse holds all her Barbies...her Barbie dream house,  RV, car...everything. It's a great place for Ella to play Barbie's with her friends. 

Secondly it provides more square footage since Ella can use the area under the playhouse as a play area as well. I put 2 black IKEA end tables under there and this is where she has her Calico Critters, her tea sets and her Journey Girl Doll. 

Here's Ella's closet!!! Ahhhhh!!! It's so big! Now she has an area to hang up her shirts and then a separate area that's higher up for her dresses. Even though it's higher when she's on her stool she's tall enough to reach it no problem.  Michael did actually end up helping me with a few things....he cut and hung up the dowel bar for her dresses and he helped me hang up all her pretties on her wall including her full length mirror that you can't see behind her door. 

As for her old room....

It's now the playroom. It needs a new coat of paint now though. I really actually like the color that Ella's new room is. That fun bright blue really matches with a bunch of her decor so we are going to keep it. There are a couple areas that need to be touched up though. But pink for the playroom is a bit much. We are going to just paint the top the same color as the rest of the house. It will be a nice neutral color. I just noticed that we haven't moved Ella's curtains into her room. That will be something that Michael will need to help me with. I love how simple and clean this room is. I put all the containers that were the same height on the left. The odd ball sizes went in the corner. 

The table is nice and clean and ready to use and the bookcase is awesome! 

The books used to be in the bookcase that's under the playhouse in Ella's new room. I knew that I wasn't going to take that bookcase away from Ella since she'd need it for storage. So....I put an ISO on the FB Buy Nothing page and a lady responded saying she had one. It's the perfect size. I didn't want one that was too tall and could possibly fall over or one that was so small it didn't fit all the books. This one was absolutely perfect! 

The only other thing that Michael had to help me with was cutting a few boards and putting them in Ella's old closet. This is where all the Imaginext toys, Army Toys, Stroller and Nerf Guns are. They are around the corner and out of sight. 

Now that the playroom has been simplified it's SO much easier to keep clean! I have the kids help every night and we make sure everything is put back where it goes. I do the same thing with Ella's room. If I let it get a little bit messy it will just get out of control so keeping on top of it is best. Even if she gets a little frustrated with me about always making sure her stuff is where it goes before bed.