Summer Project: Kid’s Room Rearrangement

When I was young and still single, one of my favourite pastime was to clean my room and rearrange the room furniture LOL. Don’t ask me why haha..but I feel that by rearranging the furnitures, it gives a good feel, like something new. Maklum lah can’t afford to buy new furniture, but by just rearranging it will make me feel good too. You know it feels like getting a hairdo or changing hairstyle once a while. That’s how I feel.

So 2 weeks ago, since no photoshoot and weekend quite free, I thought I should do something to the abandoned room. Kids didn’t want to sleep here, so dusty (no thanks to my maid!!!), toys all over the place, books not arranged properly…the list is endless. Hence I started the furniture rearrangement project :).

Here’s how it looks like previously, something like this, but with more mess (just imagine OK).

With just the bed, it’s quite OK, but hubs wanted to have that big table there, which took up alot of space!! Then we even put a shelf (courtesy of Tesco) on the table (since no more space right). At the window, we stacked up the Ikea chest so that all can fit into 1 room LOL. At the side, there’s also Ikea chest and the kid’s clothes rack was there too (can’t see the clothes rack cause I hid it under the bed).

Very cramp and I didn’t like it, especially having the table there.

So after living with this for almost 1 year, here’s what I did 2 weeks ago:

1. Moved the table out and went downstairs (since they are doing homework downstairs, might as well lah)
2. Pasted the Little Mermaid wall border on 2 sides of the room. Wanted to do this so long ago, but Mr. Hon keep dilly dally, so I do lah. It was actually pretty easy!!
3. Rearrange the bed to L shape to free some space
4. Moved 1 Ikea chest downstairs, Kept 1 Ikea chest under the bed
5. Got a new curtain. Since this room will be Faythe’s room eventually, and she likes purple. got her a purple curtain with bees on it.
6. And a few more arrangement to move the furnitures all to the side to create more walking space
7. Moved the clothes rack right to the end

The photos are with alot of mess cause I practically dumped all the toys & books at one side while moving all the furniture, then sort them accordingly, asked the maid to wash all the washable toys (and the chest!!).

Basically I created more walking space.

And here’s the finaly result:

After sitting there over the weekends and a few nights (also shouting at the kids not to enter the room), here’s the finished product, before the next wave of messiness comes :P.

1. Rearrange all the books according to category: Scholastics 1 tier, Hardcover books 1 tier, workbooks 1 tier, boardbooks 1 tier, puzzle based books 1 tier. I also gave away some books of which they’ outgrew to Jayden.
2. Sorted out all the toys: 3 chest for masak masak (1 for food, 1 for plates, 1 for rest of the cooking utensils, all cutleries in a box)
3. All the cars went into 2 smaller boxes and 1 of the chest, together with some bigger cars that can’t fit into the small box
4. All robots into 1 small box and 1 of the chest, together with some bigger robots that can’t fit into the small box
5. They had plenty of uncategorised toys (like those from McD, KFC, loose ones bought fr here n there). All these into 1 chest. I also put them in small boxes based on category (Kungfu Panda 1 box, KFC 1 box, Monsters vs. Aliens 1 box)
6. Barbie dolls and her accessories all in 1 chest
7. Faythe’s girlie stuff 1 chest (hairbands, bracelets, fake lipsticks, mirrors, etc)
8. Puzzles 2 chest. Sorted out all the puzzles and each of them either in their own box or in ziplock bag LOL
9. Blocks 1 chest
10. Stringing materials (Montessori) & blocks puzzle 1 chest
11. Placed the radio on top of one of the chest at 1 corner

Notice that I hid 1 chest under the bed. I decided to keep all the stuffed toys there since they don’t really hug them but occasionally likes to play with it (pretend play). So that their bed is not cluttered.

The chest which I’ve moved downstairs, I kept all the painting, colouring materials there. So anything to do with art, writing, drawing, all downstairs. Room is strictly toys and sleeping.

Oh and what’s with the giant chair next to the book shelf?

I moved that chair from my room to theirs. Since it’s sitting at one corner look so pathetic LOL and we only use it when we need to massage our leg with the iSqueeze.

Why put there?

1. In case I want to take nice photos of them I can ask them sit on the chair LOL (no lah that’s not my initial purpose, just thought of this haha)

Actually when I was pregnant, I always have a wish that someday, I can have a nice lil corner where I can sit down and read them books while putting them to sleep. I happen to see alot of angmo photos have something like this.

So to make my wish come true, I move the chair there, right next to the book shelf for easy access. So I can read the book to them while they are trying to fall asleep on their bed *dreaming still, since haven’t even start retraining them*.

I’ve also placed a standing lamp beside it, so I can actually off the main light and leave that on..muahahaha…

The turtle on the chair is actually a night lamp that projects stars to the ceiling. Redeemed this from Credit Card Points :).

Few more things to complete the summer project:

1. Over the weekend, went to Ikea to buy a flower shape lamp, need Mr. Hon to mount it on the wall where Faythe’s bed is. Will put this at the edge just next to the chest so that she doesn’t accidentally get tangled with the wire while sleeping.
2. Hang up the Safety Poster. Need Mr. Hon to drill also
3. I also want to use one of the wall to put some pictures (their art work or photos), still thinking where’s the right place

Note: If you notice, there’s something hanging down from the main light at the ceiling, that’s a Hari Raya Deco LOL. Faythe told me that it looks like Princess Jasmine’s Castle and we bought it last year. She wanted to hang it there, like the castle over the cloud LOL. Memang alot ideas.

OK, so now gotta start retraining again, hope they’ll sleep in this room…gotta have new strategy, anyone can share with me kids sleeping strategy that you have successfully implemented? Hope they don’t need any sleep aid to get them to sleep in their room.