Category: At Home

Wizard of Oz Inspired Kid’s Room!

I’ve been meaning to really amp up my numbers of inspiration boards*. With a house that’s pretty much “finished” as far as we’re willing to go (trying to pinch pennies helps stem the urge to constantly redo things or buy new [old] furniture) I’ve started creating imaginary rooms for imaginary people. That was always the most enjoyable part of playing The Sims, right? Or is it just me?

For kids rooms, I love going with a theme but at the same time I see the benefit of not going too themey, that is, not plastering the room with a character’s face. Kids hop from phase to phase (okay, okay, adults do this all the time too) so it’s not good to spend TOO much on particular items that fit within a certain theme. I’m also drawn to “reviving the classics,” that is, stepping away from the pre-packaged Disney bed in a bag (I will admit–in elementary school I was dying for any Disney bed in a bag. My neighbor had the Pocahontas set. So lucky).

Here I’ve taken my inspiration from the Wizard of Oz. A movie that here in Kansas is either met with great enthusiasm or great scorn, depending on who you talk to. Anyway, I digress.

This all started with the yellow rug. I love the idea of a soft “yellow brick road” underfoot and the ombré style is very on-trend. Ideally I wanted a poppy bedspread, since that is where Dorothy & her crew fell asleep, but in my searching I came up empty. Instead, I used the Marimekko poppy shower curtain for a graphic punch of red. Yes, it’s polyester and not cotton, but don’t you think it would clean easily? For the bed, I dressed it in a sweet blue but stayed away from Dorothy’s signature gingham because I felt that its rigid geometric properties (it’s a grid) wouldn’t jive as well with the crazy poppy curtain–I wanted a larger scale print. And this whimsical animal print  just stole my heart.

I like a rich wood bookshelf (this one from Land of Nod) with some concealed storage to wrangle books and toys and everything else that comes with being a kid. The dark wood looks a bit more mature, and will last longer, than white laminate particle board (which is common in kids’ rooms). For the paint, I chose a soft gray as a nod to the black and white beginning & end of the film. It will add dimension to the room while still being light enough to bounce around natural light. I also like to think that gray will camouflage scuffs and bumps on the wall which are inevitable. At least it’ll camouflage them a little bit.  Plus, using a neutral color like this makes it easy peasy to change up the room for the next phase–a few years down the road, hopefully.

For those of you who think this room is a little color-crazy, remember it’s for a child, and remember how color-crazy the movie itself is. In fact, Nicole at Making it Lovely shared an interesting article on techniclolor and the Wizard of Oz last week (after I’d begun working on this room, mind you).

Shopping List:

  • Yellow rug here.
  • Marimekko poppy shower curtain here.
  • Wizard of Oz prints here.
  • Lions, tigers, & bears print here.
  • Bedding here.
  • Lions, tigers & bears pillows here.
  • Paint: Sherwin Williams Spatial White here.

Please comment to let me know what you think! Got any ideas? Got any requests for fun kids rooms?

*I know I’m not the only one who hates the term “mood board.” What does mood have anything to do with it? I prefer inspiration because if one can’t buy the exact pieces listed, elements of the board can “inspire” you to look for similar pieces.

Hasta La Vista, Juan

For all that our lot lacks in width, it makes up for in depth. Just take a gander at the space we have available for our upcoming backyard rehab. I’d estimate that the lot is at least three times deeper than it is wide. This is great! Except for the fact that our bathroom window looks directly into our neighbor’s carport/side door. Creepy.

So here we have the bathroom (photo lazily plucked from my home tour), note the nasty yellowish mini-blinds:

When we moved in, there was a ton of very tall and thick bamboo (some of it sickly/dead) that grew well past the window and blocked any visibility. But during the house-painting process, we weeded out the sickly pieces and the bamboo got chopped fairly short. One day we arrived at home to find out that our neighbor had removed it altogether! (Pretty sure it was on our property… but whatever…) We were left with nothing but extremely dirty mini-blinds to prevent any kind of peep-show from happening. We do not want to build that close of a relationship with our Spanish-speaking neighbor.

(Ah, now the post title makes sense…)

This photo not only shows how terrible the artificial light is during a cloudy day (in our case, last Saturday, you may have heard about the day when 100 tornadoes touched down in Kansas. Luckily our city was spared) or when it’s dark outside, but… “Oh, hello there!” You can see all up in our neighbors’ business.

As I mentioned before, the mini-blinds were dis-gus-ting. They had to come down. But we had to come up with another solution. So, as an alternative I took my inspiration from Young House Love (as usual) and got some window-frosting film from Home Depot. Following their hilarious photo-based instructions here we successfully applied it to the windows. Let’s just say it wan’t HARD, but it was no piece of cake either. But these two small panes were a great opportunity for our first shot, and it turned out OK.

Now, the mini-blinds are stored in the basement, with all the hardware attached in a ziplock baggie, just in case someone wants to put them back up someday. I surely won’t.

Doesn’t the room look nicer without all that junk off of the window? Let me tell you, it is much less claustrophobic. Still needs to be touched up where I removed the hardware. The paint can is literally sitting in the bathroom, I just have to do it. I’ll probably take care of it this weekend.

Now if only we could do something about that horrific lighting fixture above the sink… Naturally… I have my ideas for it…

Backyard Boogie

Spring is absolutely, without a doubt, HERE! We had a heat wave a few weeks ago, and a week of rain, and believe it or not I think we’ve FINALLY seen the last of the fall leaves.

About the leaves: there are a ton of trees in our neighborhood, and with a warm winter and no heavy snows that sat on the ground for weeks at a time, the leaves just never seemed to go away. We must have taken at least five trips to the transfer station, with five bags of leaves each. (The nice thing is that they have a huge pile for leaves, sticks, and other green waste).

After the heat wave, we had a rainy week and have had rainy days since then. The problem with the backyard is the amount of sun it gets. The “back 40” as we call it, or the area behind the existing fence, gets plenty of sunlight:

The fenced-in space behind the house (near) stays pretty shady, which means that none of the grass we planted last year took off at all. Not even weeds really like it. Not compared to the more sunny spot (far), once you get past the kitchen’s wall:

Additionally, there is a slope from the base of the house down to the “back 40” which I estimate to be about a foot. I haven’t busted out Pythagorean’s Theorem or anything to figure out the real difference in elevation, but I do plan to so.

The solution we’ve come up with is a deck behind the house, covering the “mud pit.” It truly is a mud pit for several days after a good rain, and to let Mosey outside (while it’s in its “mud pit” state) we have to take him out on the leash in the front yard. In the middle of the night. When it’s chilly. Sad face. Back to the deck though. I’d like to see one built out of trex, the plastic “wood” that will not rot, crack, etc. It’s more expensive but the deck will last longer. Wood is fine, if kept up with regular maintenance. Seeing how the house is a rental owned by the in-laws, unfortunately it’s hard to tell how much effort and upkeep the future tenants will put into keeping a wooden deck nice. Flagstone would be OK if the ground was level, but I like the slope since it keeps water away from the base of the house and building a retaining wall would–you guessed it–retain water in all the wrong places. I think. (Not an expert over here. Just using logic).

Here’s what I dreamed up for the backyard on floorplanner.com. Note that there are lots of “extras” I’d like to see if we in fact owned the house or were planning on living here for, say, 5+ years. For instance, the additional flagstone patio set farther back (ideally with a meandering flagstone path from one patio to the other) and large shrubs and a garden area.  Since we don’t plan on ringing in 2017 in this house, they are just that: dreams. Sorry for the tiny text.

And just for fun, here’s a little 3D action.

And from the back:

Of course, I’ve posted before about how fun it would be to build a small structure or move in airstream trailer in the back half (where the imaginary flagstone patio) for additional indoor-outdoor living space. I mean, there is PLENTY of room. A backyard this big is kind of a trip for a California girl like me, used to teeny tiny strips of grass out back!