"New" Room

The Facebook "On This Day" app consistently reminds me that I am boring and my life is all about doing the same things over and over gain.  Luckily, I am developing an alarmingly bad memory, so not only do these old things feel new again, I am consistently surprised that I have done them before at around the same time of year, and I always like to look at the pictures.

Around 3 years ago, we went to IKEA to get stuff to move Harry and Jack downstairs before Dorothy was born.  When I looked at those pictures, I was surprised by how neat and cute the room looked because it really took a beating in the intervening time.  We set that room up for a 6 year-old and a 4 year-old, which explains the train table.  In the past 3 years, though, their cute IKEA duvet covers both ripped from frequent washing; the train table fell apart and got super glued and moved upstairs for a brief sojourn in Cooper's room before being thrown away entirely.  We added another IKEA EXPEDIT shelf to hold toys and books and gave the Step 2 toy box/book shelf (it's indestructible!) to Dorothy.  They broke all 3 lamps in their room, and we added some mismatched bean bag chairs and a TV so they could play their Wii U and a shitload of scrapes and smudges to the walls that were painted the same boring cream as the rest of the basement.

A few weeks ago, though, Harry came home from a friend's house speaking longingly about the friend's desk in his room with a place to hold all his pencils, and we felt bad and figured a desk was the least we could do for them.

So, almost 3 years to the day (thanks for the reminder Facebook!), we went BACK to IKEA for desks, chairs, duvet covers-- I had replaced the ripped ones with random clearance navy comforters from Target that are the perfect thing to stuff INSIDE a duvet cover), and lamps.  Ben spent 2 days painting the walls (2 walls pale yellow; 2 walls pale blue) and assembling and rearranging the furniture and bam!  A makeover on the cheap (less that $300 for everything!).

(Now Dorothy would like a pink wall, a purple wall, a blue wall, and a green wall, and she'd like to share a room with Cooper.  So, stay tuned for more bed shuffling!)

We relocated the EXPEDIT shelf and added a decoupaged ampersand to the wall

 Here's Jack's little hipster work station:

 And here's Harry's:

 (The desks actually looked cuter side by side and cutest facing each other in a little pod, but fighting!  So much potential for fighting!  And they almost came to blows this morning over optimum homework lighting, so I am glad they're far away from each other.

Harry immediately tacked his spelling list on his bulletin board.

Keeping with the hipster vibe,  Jack chose 4 supremely weird Instax pictures from the stack he has shot since he got a camera for Christmas.

 Harry picked out this cute little clock duvet, and he still has a heap of stuffed animals.  Phew!

 Jack has random animals doing stuff on graph paper and also lots of stuffed animals and Packers pillows.

 WORST PARENTS EVER:

 Still have the awkward sauce electrical cabinet.

 I love these chairs.

 I love lamp.

 And mostly, I love that they still need a place for toys.  Because they are babies.