Helene's Room Makeover

Helene is moving over to what was Campbell's room when we first moved into this house. In the meantime, it's been the craft room/kids' study. Now it will become her bedroom, and the room in between Campbell and Helene will become the game room (which Helene wants to call "The Club").

We decided to do a loft bed for her, so she would have more room underneath for playing, storage, etc. After looking around at what was available, we chose to order from College Loft Beds because they seemed sturdy and good quality for a good price. We received 6 very large boxes full of plain wood and assembly instructions. There were some pre-drilled holes, but it was nothing so easy as assembling furniture from Target or IKEA.

First we primed and painted everything. Actually, we would paint one set of boards, construct it, and then move on to the next section. The trickiest part was figuring out what each board was for. Some were obvious, but since the beds are highly customizable, not everything we ordered was explained on the assembly instructions.

Helene did some work with the drill, but it required some strength, so mostly she painted, helped me figure out what was what, held things level for me, etc. She was a great worker. I could not have built this alone.

Tobie, on the other hand, was not entirely helpful. She loved hanging out in this room, from the second we started painting the walls. She left her mark in the way of cat hair painted into the boards.

And she is quite content to sleep on the bed all day now that it is finished. There are two shelves in the headboard (behind the cat).

We bought a staircase/chest of drawers to put at one end of the bed. It's great for clothes storage, and it's much easier to get up to the bed that way than just scrambling up the ladder rungs on the end. There are 3 shelves and a desk built under the loft. Helene's Monster High dolls are neatly organized across the shelves now.

There are 3 small accessory shelves beside the mattress (you can see them at the top of the picture above). One holds her lamp. I think she wants to put a small trash can on one of the others. The new lamp and chandelier are shown below. I think they are so fun and perfect for this room.

(If I can find the battery charger for my camera, I'll take some better quality pics to post. The iPhone is handy, but doesn't do it all justice.)