Playroom Facelift

One of the largest open spaces in the house is at the top of our stairs, and we are using it as a playroom for the kids, since it's right outside their bedrooms.

(Ignore the random doors ... I took this picture while working on the kids' bedrooms about a year ago.)
We managed to get it organized at some point, but it still didn't really capture the kids' inspiration.  It's like pulling teeth to get them to play in there!

There is a lot of potential in this room for different sections of fun & relaxation.  I'm thinking a comfortable reading area, a big table in the middle with chairs so that they can color, work puzzles, and build Legos, and of course plenty of storage cubbies, which we already have.

I needed to pick colors that would be gender neutral and also go with whatever color I chose for the stairway.  The stairway continues down to the first floor where we needed to also coordinate with the color palette.

This giant wall is just asking for a mural! But, since that's outside of my creative skill-set, we're thinking about a big flat screen TV someday when the kids are older.  For now, we have plenty of places to watch TV and play video games, so we'll keep the playroom a creative imagination space.

I found a nice, rich blue color that I like and decided to add some character by painting cream stripes on both long, mostly empty walls.

I trimmed what I could of the blue, and we had an idea of where the stripes would be, so we rolled the cream section without much attention to lines.  The plan was to tape the stripes over the dried cream color and cover up any cream overflow with blue.

When you're painting late at night and really tired, you try to make it as fun as you can ...

Once the cream was dry and the stripes where chalked and then taped, I finished the blue trim.

I wanted a thick cream stripe and then a smaller cream stripe.

When the blue trim was dry, I taped around the baseboards and brightened them up with white.  You can see the filth Before on the left, and the bright white After on the right.

The half wall separating the stairs from the playroom was really filthy, too.

This shows you the filthy top of the half wall, and the molding underneath it that I painted first.  Such a difference in what you "think" is white and then what is REALLY white!

And here is the finished paint job:

This doorway leads to the kids' rooms and bathroom, which we also painted the same blue to be thrifty and use all of our paint.

I was busy painting something else, so I couldn't trim first.  I always prefer to trim before the husband comes through with the roller!  I think it looks nicer to trim first, then roll out any brush marks.  Plus, if I trim a good 2-3" off the ceiling or other wall, then he doesn't risk getting to close to it with the roller.  (I love him, but he hates painting and is a sloppy roller!)

We already had these 2 shelves, and we decided to balance the room by adding 2 shelves to the opposite corner as well.

And in the middle, a comfortable reading area with our old rug that still matches, a couple of blow-up chairs that were on clearance at Meijer for $7 each, a few $5 cream curtains from Meijer, balanced by a few slightly more expensive cream, sheer, flower-embroidered curtains from Bed Batch & Beyond for texture.

The random armoire belongs to our nursery set but is currently holding all of the dress-up clothes, so it stays for now.

The room is much more playful and inspiring for the kids now, but the one ceiling fan is not enough light for this big space.  We plan to install recessed lighting with dimmer switches around the room so that it's not so shadow-y.

The round-ish table in the center was a Goodwill find and a temporary fix for the lack of table.  We want to find OR make a big table for the kids that they can color and build stuff on.  I would prefer to make it because I have some specific ideas in mind that may become a future post ................

The stairway ended up being a gray color that we actually carried into our entryway downstairs and into the tiny hallway that leads to our master suite.  I think it does just fine with the blue and cream.

To use up all of the cream and to make sure the room wasn't TOO blue, we painted the half wall the same cream as the stripes.  This also allowed us to keep the various tote colors in our square cubbies without too much clash.

Before:

  

After: 

Not bad, eh?
As always, still more to do, but we have already noticed that the kids like to actually play in their playroom now, so that's good.