The Kids' Rooms

The Monkey is super excited to be a Big Sister and we want to keep her feeling like she's special too - because I know when this baby comes, it's going to turn her world upside down and she's probably not going to feel as good as she does now. I get it - she won't be the center of attention anymore, a little kid will be in the way, a baby will be crying, she'll need me but I won't be able to help right away... Oy, big changes!

I'm going to change up The Monkey's room - her walls will be getting a fresh coat of paint (a super warm gray instead of the bright blue, which I've ALWAYS HATED), and she even helped pick out a bright pink over-dyed rug which should be coming in the mail in the next week or so. This means that I get to do bright pink accents (I made a hot pink wreath awhile ago, and I need to find some fun vintage Barbie posters that would work well in her room). I would love to do a minimalist garden art theme - as in simple line drawings of plants and flowers but I have to remember - this is HER room, the items that go into HER room need to be loved by HER and they need to inspire HER. If that means Barbies and Princess stuff, then so be it. She'll probably want to change it all by the time she's a teenager anyway. So it's hard to convince Bimmer Man of the same for the new baby's room - I want simple because in approximately 4 years, I'll be doing the same thing, changing up the boy's room (referred to hereafter as "Chewy") with things that Chewy likes - which may NOT be cars.

Children are their own persons, they have their own likes and dislikes - if The Monkey doesn't want a Ferrari flag in her room and only agrees to it because she thinks her dad wants her to, then that's not ok with me. Children need to be allowed to say NO to things too and to feel just fine with saying no. As a parent there are times that you need to advocate for your child's choices - not force a choice upon them because you as a parent like it. I'm sure I'll encounter this debate again in the future regarding decor with both children. That's fine with me. I'm just not painting any of the rooms black, dark pink, or dark blue or any other dark color besides Benjamin Moore Ashley Gray if either child wants a dark color. Dark colors are a pain in the ass to paint over.

Besides that, I'm going to swap the children's rooms when The Monkey is a teenager and suddenly realizes the front bedroom has a larger closet. I absolutely know that will be a HUGE contentious debate at some point.

For furniture for Chewy's room I'm planning on buying the blue Hemnes dresser from Ikea -

The Monkey has the same dresser in white.

And confession:

I am in love with this linen cabinet:

I want to put it in our upstairs little dressing area that Bimmer Man has or even in our bedroom so we can hide away all the linens we have or books...because I have to sell a bookcase which means we each need to sort out and get rid of half of our books. Each of us had a bookcase that was mainly our own books but sometimes we'd stick each others books wherever so...books need to go. BOO. I guess that's just part of having a baby - plus downsizing, er, decluttering, er, minimalizing stuff is really great anyway, right?

Oy, The Monkey's new rug comes on Wednesday so today, if we don't do a playdate, we're going to Home Depot to get 4 gallons of paint and recycle old light bulbs. I'll update with photos next week.

Oh, and order new "vintage" Barbie prints that The Monkey has picked out herself.