Molly's Room...Part Two, Her New Desk

Bookcases, book shelves, bins filled with books are such an important part of our home. Some of the books constantly are changing as my kids grow...board books give way to picture books, picture books give way to simple chapter books, and then the true chapter books start to slowly work their way onto the shelves. Molly used to have this bookcase in her room on the wall opposite her bed. I forgot to take a picture of it before we took it out, but it looked just like this one. When she was little, it was perfect. I had a few baskets filled with her favorite board books that we would read over and over again on the floor at bedtime. Slowly the board books gave way to favorite picture books, like Knuffle Bunny, Pinkalicious, and Fancy Nancy. Then early readers arrived, Little Bear and Frog and Toad took their place upon the shelf. Now at eight, Molly has many chapter books, favorites such as Mr. Popper's Penguins, Ramona and Beezus, and all the Bad Kitty books.

As much as I love the book shelf, in Molly's small room, it no longer utilizes the limited space there. Molly loves to write. She loves to do homework. After we went to Gettysburg over spring break, she asked me if we had any books about the Civil War. I gave her a number of books on Abraham Lincoln, Harriet Tubman, and a beautifully illustrated book called Henry's Freedom Box about a slave that mailed  himself to Pennsylvania to be free. But Molly really didn't have an adequate working space to do her writing. The doll house book shelf didn't give her any room for a desk so I knew we needed a change.

I saw this desk on Pinterest. It looks like a small girl's room, just like Molly's, but the desk definitely has storage space for books and a workspace big enough to do homework and write.

But then, I found what I was looking for here. I came across this blog about six months ago and I love it. She has such great ideas on how to keep your house organized and the ideas are usually such simple things you can do that can make such a positive impact on your daily life.

At http://iheartorganizing.blogspot.com/ Jen planned out a work space for herself. She bought two book towers from Ikea. These are the same bookshelves that I used in my scrapbook room except these had a single row of cubbies. I knew this would be perfect for Molly's room. It would still give her lots of shelf space for her books but it would also give her a work space to do her writing and homework.

Jen's plan for her desk.

The middle shelf was added and crown molding on top to make it look like one piece.

Then she added doors to the bookshelf. These you can buy at Ikea and are made to fit perfectly for this bookshelf. If you go to Jen's blog, she has a number of posts on the process of building her desk.

So I ran out to Ikea and bought the bookshelves and Chris put them together. I purchased the middle shelf at Ikea as well and it can be cut to any length needed. Now Molly did have this little desk or vanity table in her room but it really wasn't big enough to work at and her chair did not slide under it. That really drove me crazy because in such a tight space, even pushing the chair under the desk makes all the difference in the world. 

So this was the beginning. I had the bookcases. I bought the middle shelf, and I also bought the hot pink bins at Target so that Molly would still have some pink in her room, but I still had to finish the top with crown molding and get a desk that would be big enough for a growing girl.

Well, I had Ricardo, the painter, coming to my house to finally fix the ceiling in the dining room again! Remember those alligators in the bathtub? After he was finished, I showed him Molly's bookcases. I pulled out the laptop and showed him Jen's iheartorganizing blog. I showed him what I wanted for Molly's room and together we were able to come up with a plan. He came back two days later and this is Molly's desk now.

It's perfect for her small room. She now has space for all her books, all those hot pink bins are filled with books, a few shelves for just her girly stuff and a desk that she can grow into. Notice also that the chair can now be pushed under the desk.

Ricardo also added the light on the top shelf. He drilled a small hole in the shelf to feed the electric cord through and then it is tucked behind the bookcase.

I think I'm going to hang those pink organizers on the wall that Molly got from American Girl. I also bought an extra valance and if I pull the stitching out for the pocket, it will be big enough to cover the top of the desk. The plan is to get a piece of glass to lay over it, that was Jen's idea as well.

Molly printed out a Harriet Tubman quiz from Brain Pop Jr.

A friend of mine called me up from Target one day while she was shopping because she saw this canvas print and thought Molly would like it since she loves taking her horseback riding lessons. Thanks Lori, the colors are perfect.

        The real bunny foo-foo. I think he's liking the new room too.

Ahhh, my next project is to arrange all our pictures we made and hang them above Molly's bed.

Thanks to iheartorganizing, Molly's small room is a lot more functional.

Molly's Room, Pinterest, Etsy, and Lots of Inspiration

This was Molly's room back in July of 2010. My little girl loves clothes and two years ago she wore a dress to school everyday...everyday! There was a time that she didn't even own a pair of jeans because she really just didn't like the way they felt. Molly loved clothes so much, that there were days that she changed two, three, and sometimes four times a day. And that is why her room looked like this. Her closet was not built for a six year old.

The hanger rod was too high. Molly was able to pull her clothes down but when it was time to hang them back up, she couldn't reach the rod. You can see attempts of me trying to keep her organized with the bins on the bottom and the bins on the shelf, but it wasn't enough.

So we decided to reorganize her closet so that it would be more user friendly to a little girl. First, we gave it a fresh coat of paint. Molly had so much fun painting her closet.

But this was the fun part for me, organizing the new closet.

Ahhh, so much better. She is now able to reach all her dresses on the bottom rod and she now has bins that she can reach as well.

This is what her room looked like after we were all done. I loved her room. I remember being pregnant with Molly eight years ago and sitting on the floor with my big belly putting up the wall paper on the bottom of the chair rail...whimsical pink and green diamonds with cute purple flowers. Molly's room is small but when it was clean, it really was cute. Even though I decorated the room before Molly was born, Molly's favorite color turned out to be pink. Her closet was filled with pink dresses. But then one day she decided that pink was a "little" girl's color and she wanted her room to be painted. All of my kids start to show some independence at about second grade. They start to have their own opinions as to what they like and don't like. They also start to think about what others think, friends tell them that you can't wear Gymboree anymore because it's for babies, you should only wear certain kinds of sneakers or boots, and pink is for "little" girls.

So we began the long and tedious task of scrapping off her pink and green diamond wallpaper. When we were finally done, I think Molly was a little sad. I think she was missing it. I know she wanted a change but deep down, I think in her heart, she will always be a "pink" girl. I told her we would have some pink in her new room, but it would be hot pink instead of the "little" girl pink. Molly and I found some inspiration on Pinterest for colors as well as decorating ideas.

You can find the original post here.

We found this room and Molly fell in love with the color. We had just recently painted the kids' bathroom this color, but she didn't care. This is what she wanted. We also loved all the pictures on the wall, some photos, some sayings, and some just art.

And here's Molly's room all painted. She had picked out the bedding in Bed, Bath and Beyond, notice we still have a little bit of pink to work with. Before, Molly just had a shelf above her bed. This time I wanted to try to create our own picture wall like our inspiration room. So last Monday, we had an extra day of spring break because it was a teacher workday so Molly and I got started on our project.

I found the M and the words at AC Moore, bought some paints that I thought would go with her room and we got started.

We painted a canvas with brown paint and then glued the M onto it. We put some Mod Podge over it and it came out great. We had the stickers from her bedding set. It came with wall stickers to decorate the room but we used them for our project.

We also got some wooden plaques and painted them. Molly had a book from American Girl with mini-posters in it so we picked out some with the colors of her room and used some more Mod Podge.

Nothing is on the wall yet. We were just playing around and rearranging the pictures. Two of the pictures I found on Pinterest as free downloads. I'm still waiting for a couple of prints I ordered on etsy as well, another favorite website of mine. So Molly's room is still a work in progress. So much inspiration out there on Pinterest and Etsy. I also found a great DIY desk for her room on a website for organizing your home. But I will leave that for another post.

Pinterest Inspiration

Back in January, I was on a quest to do something, anything, with our sitting room. I had no inspiration for this space. I've had a desk in this small sitting room off of the master bedroom for years and most of my scrapbooking stuff was in this space, but there was still stuff on the floor, there were still piles of stuff that I couldn't find a home for, there was still stuff that just needed to be sorted through, but again, I didn't have a plan, I didn't know what to do and then I found Pinterest. I found this hutch that is very similar to the one I have but didn't look quite as organized.

Then I found this book shelf, so much stuff but so neatly organized with baskets on the bottom.

And then I found this one, this is what I wanted, this is what I needed to do to organize this space and make it a workable space. Notice the work table/desk is in the middle of the room.

Another version of this bookshelf only smaller. You can find all of these pictures on my Pinterest Craft Room board. I just figured out how to put a Pinterest button on the blog.

From one of the links I found out that the bookshelf was from IKEA. I now had a plan and an idea as to how I was going to utilize this small space.

The first thing I did was move my desk from up against the wall to the center of the room. I was always hesitant to do this because I thought the room was too small but it really seemed to work.

Then the bookshelves were built and added. I already had the brown baskets sitting empty in the basement from when they were filled with toys when the kids were much younger. Then I found the green bins at Target.

Remember that big black hutch on Pinterest that looked similar to mine? Well, here is mine all reorganized. The four big file boxes are each for the kids to put memorabilia in until I eventually get it into scrapbooks. The white boxes are my photos.

Before

Here's that same sitting room back in December. Now yes, it was a disaster because of all the Christmas stuff but I just gained so much space by pulling the desk to the center of the room and adding the IKEA bookcase to the left.

After

 I am presently working on Molly's room. My little girl that absolutely loves the color pink, pink, pink decided that it is now a little girl's color and that she wanted her room painted turquoise. There was lots of Pinterest and blog inspiration for her room as well. I'll try to post pictures soon.