Switching things up in Kinsey’s Room

When we moved into this house over a year ago my daughter’s room was a huge football field.

After torturing my poor daughter in that room for 15 straight months, I finally started her much needed bedroom makeover by hanging lots of board & batten and giving the entire room a fresh coat of paint (or 20, but I lost count).

I’ve been at it again this weekend. I really want to tie up all the lose ends of her room and get it done once and for all.

Let’s start with her furniture. She has great furniture. Her matching set has a sleigh bed, a dresser & mirror, a side table, and a large toy chest (4 pieces total). It’s solid wood, perfect for a little girl, and adorable. Initially I planned to paint all of it white, but after lots of debate, the furniture and I have decided to part ways, and here are a few reasons why:

a) the bed doesn’t allow for a trundle under it, and my daughter is the Sleepover Queen.

b) the dresser is too tall, too big, and takes up too much precious floor space for her toys. It also has too many drawers; half of them are completely empty.

c) she really has no use for a side table.

d) the large toy chest was a magnet for kids playing hide-and-seek and made it a little too easy to quickly “clean” her room by piling trash, laundry, and ALL toys into it. Momma didn’t like that at all!

First step in Project Kinsey’s Room? Moving out her furniture to get ready to put on Craigslist.

Of course, now she’s down a dresser. In my opinion, dressers are totally over-rated. I prefer built-ins and shelving in the closet any day over a dresser, especially for children who need the extra floor space to play.

I came up with a simple solution that I think is the bees knees. I drug her bookshelf into her closet and put all her clothing on it. (I’ve also been busy adding stuff to her walls.)

This is the same shelf that she helped put together last year.

Here’s how I organized it:

(The zebra boxes are her Duct Tape Boxes (Tutorial HERE). They have held up amazingly well! They are perfect for her underwear and all her dance clothing. We keep socks downstairs in the mud room.)

And on the other side of her closet:

Stealing the shelf away has now left us with this huge disaster though. Lots of toy storage is now needed (I’ll share the toy storage in the next post.)

A view into her room from the hallway…

(Fluffy coffee filter wreath tutorial can be found here)

The shelf use to be along this wall, but the shelf is now in the closet and I “stole” the sofa table from the game room.

The plan was to get her a cute little dressing table with a mirror, but I opted for the sofa table because (besides the fact that I already own it so it’s essentially free) the sofa table is not as deep as a traditional desk or table and this little space is too awkward for a big protruding desk.

The plan was for a big pretty mirror to hang above so Kinsey can put on her jewelry and spend time primping, but after short consideration I concluded that she owns way too much crap and needed storage in lieu of a mirror.

Ikea to the rescue! I purchased 2 floating shelves (lack) for her room, and it was my lucky day because ikea just lowered the price down to $15 per shelf. Woot!

And now, after they are hung!

What a difference, right?! I’m thrilled with how they turned out. I say “progress” though because the sofa table needs to be painted, more artwork and accessories need to be hung, and my piano bench needs to be returned to my piano room and replaced with a cute little chair for Miss Kinsey to sit on.

(Yellow and Gray artwork of Kinsey above bedroom door, upper left corner of room, can be found here.)

She now {finally} has a place for all those little girlie things that she loves that aren’t exactly toys, but still need a place to call home.

I won’t sugar coat this and lie though, installing those shelves was pretty much a pain in the arse. Apparently ikea changed the design of them from when I bought a longer version for my dining room.

Instead of using basic Phillips Head (plusie) screws under the shelves, they now use Hex screws.

What are Hex Screws? I’m so glad you asked! They are screws that take a Hex bit to tighten them. You can’t use your basic screwdriver, so the shelves come with this little Hex bit to tighten them. Except tightening them by hand is almost impossible unless you are a body builder.

The solution? A $5 trip to Home Depot.

If you put together a lot of assemble-yourself furniture, I highly recommend you purchase a set of Hex bits and a Bit Tip Holder. Heck, I’d purchase a set just to put together ONE piece of furniture. The set is cheap, and made the job so much easier and faster.

To use the Hex Bit set, all you do is find the bit that fits your screw, then insert said bit into the holder.

From there, attach the bit holder to your electric drill.

Now you can assemble your furniture in less than a minute and without pulling a muscle in your arm.

Closet and shelves down…

…toy storage to go…

As soon as I get the toy storage situation under control I’ll be sure to give you an update. After that all I need to do is unload all the furniture on Craigslist, buy a new bed, and accessorize!

I’m really looking forward to getting the room finished. I’ve got a few more little projects up my sleeve too. Hopefully soon I’ll be able to check a room off my list once and for all! Of course, with all this work going on in sissy’s room, big brother Travis is starting to feel a little jealous, so I’ll be starting his room next.

It’s never-ending! Good thing I LOVE IT.

I hope you have a great MLK day and an even better week!