While My Kids Are Napping...: Bella and Noah's shared space...

In honor of Noah's second birthday earlier this week, I decided this post would focus on the bedroom he shares with his 4-year old sister Bella. Since these living arrangements will probably only work for the next few years, I wanted to make sure that the current decor "fit" the two of them but was also easily changable and relatively inexpensive.

It took me a little while to choose what color I wanted to use in Bella and Noah's room. I finally decided that even though green is the typical "go-to" color for gender neutral things, it did give me the most flexibiltiy. The walls in their room were already painted a mossy green when we bought the house, but it wasn't quite the shade I wanted to use. I painted quite a few sample squares of various greens on the walls before I settled on one called "Bare Branches" by Sherwin Williams (it's actually part of their now-discontinued Martha Stewart collection, but the formula was still in the computer when I asked).

Even though I wanted some aspects of their two sides to be the same, I didn't want Noah's side to mirror Bella's side completely. I knew the biggest matched item would be their beds. Since I wanted to keep expenses down, I started searching for a matching pair of secondhand beds. Several weeks of stalking Craigslist (and all of the garage sales within 30 miles) left me empty-handed and disappointed. After a bit of brainstorming, I decided to change my plans and jump on the DIY-upholstered headboard bandwagon. My staple-gun and I have taken on our fair share of smaller projects, but the idea of headboards was a bit daunting. I kept it simple and went with plain rectangle shapes and no extra detailing, but I am pretty happy with the way they turned out.

Noah only had a couple months left in his crib, so I started work on Bella's side first. I broke a few of my "rules" while working on her bedding. I usually refuse to buy multiple pieces of a set and I don't normally go for cartoon characters or animals in kids' rooms, but Bella fell in love with the Circo "Love 'N Nature" collection at Target. Since I have a major soft spot for owls (and birds in general), I gave in. We bought the quilt set, the coordinating sheets, an amazingly cute owl pillow, a canvas owl print, and an awesome tree lamp. Once we made it home, I added in a few extra pillows that were left-over from Maddie's bedroom makeover. Next, partly because I have an addiction to vintage (particularly mid-century) chairs and not enough places to put them all, I sat a fantastic Gunlocke chair next to the foot of her bed. I scored this chair for free from a family member and had originally planned to try to refurbish it to use in our bedroom someday, but the awesome persimmon-colored leather looked so great in there that I changed my mind.

Finally Noah was ready for his "big boy" bed, and I could begin working on putting their room together. I started with a khaki and brown plaid comforter, since it used two of the more dominant colors from Bella's bedding and went well with the headboards. Next I needed some color to compete with the pinks, greens, yellows, and oranges that were also in Bella's bedding. I had some trouble until I came across a favorite baby blanket that I was having trouble getting rid of, one side was a grid of brown, blue, yellow, and green dots and the other was a super-soft solid electric blue. It was perfect, so I very carefully took the blanket apart and used the separate pieces of fabric to make two large pillows! Then, because I still rock my "baby" every day, I brought his rocking chair back in and put it near the foot of his bed.

All of my kids are avid readers, and I really wanted Noah and Bella to have some of their books where they could get to them easily. I'd seen a few wall-mounted bookshelves online that would have fit perfectly next to their beds, but the prices were all a little steep. Justin and I decided it was time for another weekend DIY project and built our own using some beadboard, pine 1 x 4's, and wooden dowels.

Their room was now looking more like two distinct half-rooms than the cohesive whole that I had originally envisioned. I placed my grandfather's dresser in the space between the two headboards, then stood back and contemplated the empty wall above. I really wanted something that tied both the sides together, but had no idea what. After a few days, I realized that a collection of things might work better than one large something. Bella's side was easy: birds, owls, birdhouses, and flowers all worked well with her bedding and her personality. Noah's side took a little longer, but I finally settled on a bit of a tribute to Justin's time in the Navy (and mixed in a few airplanes, since both father and son love them).