Sofia and the big girl room

I would like to take this moment to do a little bragging.

About this small person right here.

She loves ice cream.

She likes to make lists and can hold a pen with the precision of a surgeon.

She is a master face-maker.

She's also an expert-level cuddler.

She's fearless and would climb more trees if the branches weren't so high.

For now, she accepts Mommy's help with grace.

I'm the luckiest person in the world that I get to share space with such

an amazing little girl.  I get to be her guide on this journey and that's pretty awesome.

And as of a week ago, this little girl went ahead and made that leap and started using the big girl potty.  I'd been trying to coax her to use it for a couple of months now, but Sofia does things when Sofia is good and ready and she wasn't ready.  We'd been going diaper-free at home, but it was hit or miss.  Until one day, she was playing in the living room and she stopped what she was doing and ran to the bathroom.  She climbed up and peed like she'd been doing it forever.  No prompting, no bribing - she just went and it was glorious.  Ever since then, if she's not wearing pants, going to the potty is no problem.  We have to work on getting used to wearing underwear and going to the bathroom before the underwear is wet, but it's happening.  I broke out the candy to get her to poop on the potty and that was a rousing success.  One look at the Gummi Savers and she was like, Oh let me just go on and poop so I can get that candy.

We don't have candy in the house and she actually doesn't have much of a 

sweet tooth.  The Gummi Savers and the Pringles were the only treats she wanted,

and even those lost their novelty after only a short time.

She's got the idea and I'm sure that keeping her underwear dry is a goal that she'll reach within days.  She's only wearing her 'sleep pants' (we're not even calling them diapers anymore) for naps and bedtime and she's started to even keep those dry.  She's amazing.

Therefore, when one has such an awesome little kid, it's only fitting that awesome kids have awesome bedrooms.  Sofia's nursery is still one of my favorite decorating endeavors, but I'm pretty excited about her big girl room, and I think I've got some pretty decent ideas about where to go with it.

When we moved to this house, I did her room almost exactly like it was in Texas because I wanted Sofia to have a sense of familiarity in the new place.

Not-so-great shot of her room/windows.

I hung some butterflies, which were a success after the colossal failure that

was trying to make my own curtains.  The bamboo shades weren't much easier.

Then, yesterday we made the Big Switch.  I'm talking The Big Girl Bed.  We bought two twin beds from Drew's co-worker, one for Sofia and one for the nursery.  I was wary of buying beds secondhand but they were only a year old and used exclusively on the weekends by older kids (no pee) and no pets (no pee.)  So we went for it and by the time you read this Sofia will have taken a successful nap and (hopefully) slept through the night in her big girl bed.

It always takes her a minute to wake up, but I had to take a picture

of her first successful nap in her bed.

This is how it's looking today.

After the blood, sweat and tears I put into the curtains and bamboo shades, we went ahead and sprung for wooden blinds for the rest of the house.  Now all the windows in the bedrooms have the same matching blinds and it makes everything look so much nicer.  However, the blinds do nothing to block light so I had to snip the blackout liner from the bamboo shades and put them on the windows.

I stuck command hooks on the window frame and cut little holes in the liner.  They hang 

behind the blinds and once again it's pitch black in her room.  It's a pain

to take them down when I want to open the blinds and let light in, but it

was a cheap and easy fix so we're going with it. 

I try to keep her toy corner somewhat neat, but as kids get older

their toys get bigger and harder to stow.

She's still getting good use out of her little table too.

So that's how things are looking in her room right now.  Here are my plans:

The quilt, although beautiful, is only temporary.  We bought the beds a while ago, but Drew's co-worker wasn't ever available to help load and unload them so they sat at his house for over a month.  Sunday, he was suddenly available so I just ran to Target and bought the softest white flat and fitted sheet I could find because I wasn't sure what kind of bedding I wanted.  Drew's Aunt Penny made the quilt for us when we got married and it was living on the guest room bed and I just put it on this bed as a (beautiful) placeholder.

Unfortunately, the quilt is a little too much in this room.  With all the colors, her room feels chaotic and overstimulating, so this isn't the final choice.  Wanna know what is?

Ta-daa!

I want new bedding for our bed, but the white duvet isn't even a year old and there's nothing wrong with it.  I hated for it to go to waste when I had a total epiphany.  We have two twin beds; a king-size duvet is about the size of two twins.  A duvet is just a giant pocket; what if I just sewed a line up the middle, well, two lines actually, and split the duvet in two?!  Bam!  Two duvets for our two new beds!  And if you squint, it looks kind of like ruffles - perfect for a girl's room and a nursery, not so hot in a grown-up bedroom.  It's perfect!  It's genius!  And even *I* can sew a straight line! (Famous last words...)

With white bedding, that'll calm things down a bit in there.  Then there was the issue with the butterflies.  I loved them, but they too were a little chaotic with all her colorful books and toys.  I need order and symmetry.

I first saw these hearts here, and I fell in love.

I plan to use them in the nursery but I wanted something 

similar in Sofia's room to sort of tie the two together without being obvious.

They're going to be in the same grid pattern and I'm really excited

to see how it turns out.

I'm also going to get some picture wire to hang her artwork, which

will be just below the picture ledges.  

I think I'll need another short ledge, so I can have two ledges and a picture wire.

Like so, from here.

I feel like these changes will bring a little more order to the room, while still honoring it as a child's space.  I hate children's bedrooms that are too precious for a child to live in, but I don't feel like you have to sacrifice your sense of style to plastic and primary colors.  With these ideas, I think it'll look stylish and be a fun place to play.

Now, I haven't changed much in here so far; I just plan to move things around and give this room some new life.  I like her furnishings and they're not too baby-ish, so I saw no reason to make huge changes.  The only thing I found I was craving was pink, of all things.  I want some pink in this room and the roof of her little dollhouse wasn't enough.

And then I found it.  The rug of all rugs.  When I saw it, I knew it was it.  It would tie everything together perfectly and it must be mine.

Behold, the most perfect rug for the most awesome girl in all the land.

It's got the pink, it's got the orange, and it's ombre for crying out loud!

Really they should just call this the Desiree and Sofia rug.

This rug will pick up the orange in the canvases, the pink in the dollhouse and I'm thinking some floral sheets peeking out from the white duvet might be just the touch I need in my, I mean, Sofia's life.  The rug is more than my $300 limit for rugs but how can one put a limit on perfection?  It's freakin ombre!  Ombre is my LIFE, people.  You know this, and the only thing I love more than ombre is stripes.  It's like it was MADE for me and I simply have to have it.  This rug will make the perfect big girl room, I'm sure of it.

I plan to repaint her little bookcases and get new knobs for her dresser.  I'm in love with the idea of little pink crystal knobs and maybe pink and orange for the bookcases?  And once I move the changing pad to the nursery (because my big girl doesn't need it anymore!) I can put a few fun things on top of her dresser.

I'm really excited about this makeover; I don't think it'll take much time or effort to move some things around and I'm pretty sure I'll get a big impact out of it.  You know I'll keep you posted on how it turns out!

In the meantime, I'm going to go back to drooling over that rug....