Extreme Playroom Makeover..

First off, Happy Birthday to our little princess! Today M turns 13 .. er.. I mean 4! (It just SEEMS like she's 13 sometimes.)

Danelle and I struggled for a while as to what to get M for her birthday. We discussed a new bike, new doll, new shoes . .but ultimately decided on the big enchilada.. To make over her playroom. The kicker being we wanted to do it all WITHOUT M knowing about it!

The old playroom:

So for 3 weeks we have been talking and planning and secretly shopping for items to put into the playroom. Finally Friday came and it was time to get serious.

Friday

Our plan involved painting one wall with chalkboard paint on top of a metallic primer base. Not as easy as it sounds, becuase first you have to make sure you have a smooth surface.. which involved me sanding the wall like crazy. The scope of our plan quickly changed from the painting the whole wall to just a 3 foot strip (plus it would be way too dark in that room.) So after we got the girls to bed we started the task of cleaning out all the toys and junk that had accumulated down there. Again, not an easy task because we wanted to keep it secret, so that meant stacking everything up in the furnace room and my office.

I also had the idea to repaint and re-top my old art desk. A can of Krylon Fusion white paint worked great on the white frame of the desk. Then we found some wrapping paper that matched the colors we had picked out and placed that over the top of the desk. Finally we took an old poster frame that had plexiglass for the glass and secured that on top of the paper. The end result looks pretty cool if I do say so myself.

That took us until about 1:00 am - I foolishly thought that since it was a Saturday and the girls had played outside most of friday they would sleep in a little.. Not so. 7 am came way to quickly.

Saturday

For Saturday Danelle took the girls grocery shopping and then to see her cousin Paul perform in a show choir competition here in town. Meanwhile I stayed home and began sanding. This is not something I'd want to repeat anytime soon. I was covered in dust and everything I ate for the rest of the day tasted like drywall. But I did get it all sanded.

After that was all done it was time to start laying on the metallic primer. This stuff is cool,but the magnets we have are kind of old and it took 3 coats to make the surface metallic enough for them to stick to the wall.

Saturday ended with the third coat of paint on the wall at about 1:30 - again I thought I'd get to sleep in. This time Danelle was nice enough to get up and let me sleep till 8 - Of course that meant getting up and rushing to get ready for church - but the extra hour of sleep was worth it.

Sunday

For sunday during the day we didnt get a whole lot done since M had a birthday party to go to - Bowling - her first time. She had a blast with this.

Once the primer was on it was time to start painting the walls themselves. Because of the way we planned the room with two different colors on opposite wall, that meant getting 2 walls painted, wait for it to dry - the re-tape and do the other walls. So again, a late night was had by Tom - this time i got to bed sometime around 2:30 am but I did have the chalkboard all painted and 2 walls done with 2 coats of paint.

Monday

Monday started like any other monday morning - I got up and got ready for work and helped get the girls dressed. Got them in the car and took them to Kelly's. Except instead of going to work I headed over to Lowes to pick up a few more supplies and then back home to continue working. I had arranged to have Monday off from work so I could have a full day uninterrupted to finish up. Next time I have such an idea please slap me. :)

First thing I did was paint the opposite walls - then work on the stairway and start putting together the cabinet we bought to put above her art desk.

Mid afternoon monday:

By 3 in the afternoon I was really starting to drag - but knowing how much we still had to do I kept pressing -- Fortunately for me the Cubs played a 12 inning game monday - so I had baseball to listen to ALL afternoon!

At about 6:00 Danelle came home with the girls (they had gone to the grocery store to buy a cake for M, they came home with cupcakes - go figure.) We fed them and played upstairs till bed time - then it was back downstairs to start loading in furniture and toys -- This may have been the hardest part- deciding which toys went where and which toys went to storage. BUT we got it done - A few touches here and there and by 12:45 we were heading to bed...

The final result:

Tuesday - The Big Reveal

I'll skip the details of the actual birthday and get right to the reaction. We had decided to give M a hop skotch carpet and after she opened it she HAD to play it -- So we told her that I would go pick up her play room so she could play it .. . When she came down she was stunned.. It totally made the whole weekend worth it. L was amazed as well - both girls just walked around and kept bouncing from one item to the next.

L was the receptionist at M's "Dr. Office"

So thats our weekend. I'm exhausted, but like I said seeing her play in it tonight makes it all worth it. I need to post a Huge thank you to Danelle. I think she worked harder than I did keeping M occupied. Overall I'm really proud of what we got accomplished in such a short time. The bad news is we kind of shot ourselves in the foot -- Now we know how fun it is to make a room all our own - and we have eyes on re-designing my office and the guest bedroom.. But I think if we do tackle that .. it will be in a couple months!