MYA’S ROOM

Welcome to Mya’s room. As she is growing up way too fast and her room will also be ever-changing, it’s fun to document her little space. It’s difficult for me to pinpoint a specific “theme” for the room, except that it’s filled with color and feel-good things. Many items are from my childhood and we were able to save a lot of money on furniture. Her crib is from Ikea and the white cabinet/ shelving unit was given to us. Every picture, blanket, and stuffed animal is meaningful to us and probably won’t be to you; but we hope you enjoy the tour nonetheless!

The picture wall ranges from an embroidery of the Lord’s prayer made by Grandma when she was 10… to pictures that I drew in college… to a little elephant music box from my parents’ trip to Italy. The birdies were collected since her 1st “Bird”day party. The quilt was also made by my Grandma in 1987.

Mya has many rituals. One of them being before we tuck her into bed: We carry her over to the lightswitch on the wall and she turns the light off with her foot. Then she puts each foot over her footprint painting and says “FOOT!”, then each hand over her handprint painting and says “HAND!”

The blue paper hearts remain taped to her wall from Valentines’ Day. Someday, I’d like to paint a light, subtle pattern on that wall. But for now, the blue hearts break-up the plain wall, yet somehow bring the two, more colorful walls together.

The dollhouse! This deserves a post all by itself, so that will come soon! Derek’s mom commissioned one of her friends to make this for Mya for Christmas. And we love it so.

A basket stores blankets (and a large bean-bag frog) that we use to set-up tea parties and picnics in her room with (usually) babies and kitties.

The dresser was a Craigslist find– stripped down, new drawer hardware installed, new drawer pulls chosen. It was a labor of love (and definitely not beautifully crafted by any means!), but it works for now and I love the color (SW 6841– Dynamo). We have a lot (3) of painted dressers in our house. Not because that’s my number one style preference for furniture, but because it’s a pretty simple way to create a fresh new look.

The monogram painting is the focal point of this wall. It still needs a thin fuschia frame– after 2 1/2 years! But it was super easy to make and it makes a great baby gift. So I’ll post a how-to on the monogram painting soon. The stencil mirrors were HomeGoods finds circa 3 years ago, spray painted white. Party hat was from her 2nd Birthday. Duh, Ashley.

We call the green polka dot guy “Giraffe Cow.” Another night-time ritual: Mya drapes Giraffe Cow’s arms over her shoulders as if giving him a piggyback ride, then runs up and down the hall as I try to brush her wet hair after bath, saying “CHASE ME! CHASE ME! NO! NOOOO!”, laughing uncontrollably. So there’s that.

Felt heart wreath is from Target around last year’s Valentines’. Blue and yellow painting is something my Dad made for me in college. Ruby slippers was something I had hanging in my childhood room. Colorful crooked art was made from residual paint. And the stuffed animals are out of control.

This collection is partly my fault. Some are ones that I just couldn’t part with from when I was little. The wooden bunk bed was made in the early 1990s by my Grandpa.

The closet is a work-in-progress. We want to install more shelves and a lower clothing rack, so that Mya can hang things herself. That’s on this year’s project list, so we’ll see when it happens!

And this little one was pretty patient during the hour it took me to tidy-up and photograph her room.

Derek kept her busy in the hallway.

And then she needed to grab “Puppet Show” the police officer puppet and use her puppet voice to ask me, “What’re you doing, Mama?”

With any room design, it’s always nice to have a “use what you have” mentality. And kids rooms seem to be a bit easier to adopt that philosophy because there’s no such thing as “too much color” and anything fun is fair game. If it’s whimsical and doesn’t have sharp corners (yes, we’re safety freaks over here!), then we say “go for it!”

Update: The basement project is at a standstill for now and we’ve been doing some outdoor upkeep instead (ie mulching and filling-in low spots in the yard with dirt– super exciting.) And since we probably won’t get to mudding and finishing the drywall until it’s stupid hot outside, we’ll share the drywalling story this week. As Mya would say…. “WEEEE-HAW!” Translation: “yee-haw”