Welcome to the Jungle

Isaac and Julia's room has been finished (or close to finished) for a few weeks now. I have been waiting to post pictures because I wanted everything completely finished. We still need to make the curtains, pillows for the bench, and the cork board project. But seeing that Gabe is our resident sewer (yes, he does the sewing around here!!) and he is super busy with work right now, I just can't bring myself to ask him to take time to help finish the projects. All that to say, their room may remain "partially finished" for some time. So on to the pictures of the room as is.

If you look closely you will notice that the "s" in Isaac's name is missing. It fell to its death about a week ago. Add that to our list of things to finish/fix around here!

We went with the jungle theme mainly because we already had the cut-outs in the bathroom and wanted to save time and money. It is hard to find a theme that fits both a girl and boy. Isaac was absolutely adamant that there would not be any pink in his shared room with Julia. He is so against anything girlie~ all of which Julia adores. So to compromise I bought Julia some princess sheets and convinced her that every jungle needs a princess. She bought right into it! I also dedicated areas in their room for all her dress up and baby doll stuff.


Gabe repainted the room with a dark navy blue below the chair rail, a green stripe above the rail, and a light blue above the green. The colors look awesome together! Better than I had expected. It is always hard for me to picture how the colors will look until they are actually on the wall. This time around, it was exactly what I wanted!

The bedding is white with blue, green, orange, and brown jungle animals on it. Thus the colors of our room!! Blue and green dominate the room with accents in brown and orange.

As most of you know, Gabe worked his tail off to build the bunk bed and I must say he did a fabulous job!!! The beds are put at an "L" shape to leave room for a nice little reading area under the bunk and beside Julia's bed. I put their turtle bean bag and a bin of library books in that area. With some clamp on lamps for both beds they are set up to read all they want.


Originally we planned for Gabe to make the toy/book storage along the window wall. Time ran out and we decided to go with this cubicle storage we found at Target and Lowe's. Great thing is the day I went in to buy the storage pieces, it just happened to be on sale. We ended up saving over $100 on the whole thing. I love a good sale!!!! The canvas bins that we have hold so much. They are 1ft by 1ft. With the set up we have now, we have more toys out and available in their room than ever before. It doesn't look like it though because they are all tucked nicely away.





Now I will toot my own horn!!! I love to label things and organize. I can't help it! It is always a good day when I can use my labeler. Clean up time is always a bit frustrating to me because the kids do a great job picking up their toys but the toys don't always make it back to their "home" and eventually we have a mangled mess of toys that we have to spend time reorganizing. My solution was to make these labels for the bins. On the front is the name of the item and on the back is a picture. I used name tag holders for the tags. That way when I switch out the toys I can slip a new label in - no big deal! They work great and I must say that Isaac and Julia have been able to successfully put the toys back where they belong! YEAH! Now that their room is a bit cramped organization is the key to controlling the chaos.



This dress up center is the one that I made for Julia last Christmas. I just re-stickered the bins to match the room colors and Gabe repainted the knobs. Love this piece of furniture. I got it from our church when they were opening up the new Children's building and getting rid of old furniture. It makes a perfect dress up center.


Gabe made this storage unit for Julia a year or so ago. I dedicated the whole thing to her baby dolls. The only problem is that it sits right at the door and she often sits right in front of it playing baby dolls. That results in an entryway into their room full of baby blankets, baby dolls, baby clothes.....you get the picture. Oh well, not much I can do to solve that problem right now.



Once we moved Julia into her new room with Isaac they both took right to it. I figured we would need more time for them to get used to sleeping in the same room and sharing this space. I worried most about having nights of constantly saying things like, "no more talking or playing... time to go to sleep" But I haven't had to do that much at all. Julia immediately took ownership of her new room and now refers to her old room as the baby's room or the nursery. Much smoother transition than I had expected. The only change we have had to make is where Julia takes a nap. I have started putting her in my room so Isaac can have their room for quiet play time. This arrangement actually works better because Julia does not have the distractions of a room full of toys to entice her to get out of bed. Since she has been napping in my room, she has been actually taking good naps every day. That results in a much happier little girl and a much happier Mommy! So it's a win- win!


Hope you have enjoyed our little tour of the "jungle". I will post pictures of our finished projects whenever we get around to finishing them.