Statia's Profile

I think that a lot of parents need to get over themselves. Of course we hate the licensed characters of today. This is a testament to maturity. Cartoons are annoying. But they were awesome when we were kids. "Those were the days." Where have we heard that before? I want to be the trendy, "that is so obscure" parent, and in some cases, I am. But I also will indulge my kids in their favorite cartoon characters, because licensed goods are not a new thing, and I want my kids to grow up with a fondness for their favorites, as I did mine. You want your kids to grow up and make their own decisions? Let them start now. Even if Elmo and Dora are the most annoying things, this side of the hemisphere, kids are learning from it (even if it's mildly), and their developing their own personal taste. I expose my kids to everything, and their love of their favorites is ever evolving. One week it might be Jem, another week it's Transformers. And yet another week, all they want to watch is Fresh Beat Band or "Max and Roovy" (as my daughter calls it). If it makes them happy, who cares? I remember having everything Strawberry Shortcake when I was a kid. Is it really that different? I'm guessing no, because we all have rose colored glasses.

I basically did all of this with my two and four year old recently. We added an extra bedroom for our daughter (we had one of those two story, waste of space family rooms, which we closed off for said bedroom) to give her more space, and since we were already going to have to paint her room, we figured it was time to graduate my almost five-year-old from the pale blue room. We let both of them pick out two colors. She wanted pink AND purple and wasn't really picky which exact shades. My son wanted apple green from Benjamin Moore, which is like, highlighter bright, so I asked him if he would settle for a more muted pear green (equally as awesome) and he said yes. He also picked a dark turquoise. It's such a rad color combo.

As for themes, I did go with themes for their rooms, but I went with what they love, and It wasn't the same coordinated pictures to bedding type thing. For my daughter, she wanted unicorns. I found a cute unicorn type print on Etsy. I used the graphic from her 1st birthday invitation, tweaked it a bit, and sent it off to LTL prints to have it made up into a wall decal. I went more whimsical with a cloud mobile. Hearts on her bedding set. I also found my old ceramic ballet slippers, that my mother had painted purple for my own room as a kid.

For my son's room, he loves all things transportation. Nothing is really matching in that regard, different duvet, a detailed pencil illustration that my uncle drew of a motor cycle years back, and again, some really cool retro looking etsy art, loosely color coordinated, giving it a nice tied together look, but not too over the top matchy.

I had both of their names made out of paper mache letters in specialized fonts, fit to their personality. I'll decorate them accordingly.

It's been so much fun putting their rooms together. Each one a challenge to make them look pulled together, without making them look like I went all garanimals on them. Each room is unique to their personality, and they both love their rooms.

I'm so glad I'm not the only one. I love a good design, and sure, it would be nice if kid's toys were aesthetically pleasing to the home decor, but they're toys. For kids. Who like loud colors, and noisy things, and messes. I struggle with the amount of crap that I find laying around my house. HotWheels spilling into the hallway, the ugly doll high chair, but you know what? The time that you have these toys in your house is so short lived. Why are you forcing your anal retentive design sense on your kids? They won't be kids soon enough. Maybe they don't need a lot of stuff, but some brightly colored plastic in your life isn't going to kill you. My kids aren't lacking in imagination because they don't have the rocking chair hybrid rocking horse. They manage to pretend with cardboard wrapping paper tubes OR light up light sabers.

Sorry, I think this is a big fail.

I agree with Bobbystwin. It's like the attractive list of potties that are better looking for adults. Anyone who has potty trained a child, knows that it's a difficult task. If it's made easier by some gaudy looking brightly colored monstrosity, and it works for the CHILD, then I think that should be taken into consideration. Not that it goes with your home decor. We had to try a few, before we found one for our son, which was a fisher-price frog potty. Similar in design to the once a upon a potty, it was green and blue, and had eyes on the front, and little "feet." It wasn't horribly offensive, and it worked really well, as it took him a long time before he understood that he had to push his boy bits DOWN. My 2.5 year old daughter could care less about this design, which means, I'll most likely end up with something pink, frilly, with princesses on it. It'll probably be ugly as sin, but if it gets her out of diapers, then I will gladly have it in my house.

@jfork
Aden and Anais has very light muslin sleeping sacks if you were interested in going that route.

My special room would be a multi functional work room for wood working and big DIY projects, with a craft area, sewing area, etc. Someplace where I could have all of my creative outlets in one spot.

Love the eclection, yet, streamline on the same type of furniture style. And I LOVE that vintage dog. Mama want.

I love the look of rainbow cake (who doesn't? That would be like hating unicorns, which is just not humanly possible), but I'm one of those parents who eschews the FD&C's, and have been put off by using naturals from past experience. I may have to try it again. This is awesome.

I do love that she's mixed different styles (I love the little mid-century side table in the nursery). But I think overall, it's just a tad too busy for my taste.

I struggle with mix and matching. I like so many different styles, but I also like order and neatness and similarity. Each side of my brain fights with each other about a sense of style.

Be careful with painting ceiling fans (blades), as it can affect the balance and performance of the fan.

Also, seriously, I don't get this whole chevron stripe trend. I'm not loving it. To each their own, though.