In time for December Gatherings

Welcome to the room previously known as the playroom. I wish I had a picture of the room in it’s full glory, but I think I was to embarrassed to even take a picture of it.  I always thought that it would be a genius idea for the kids to have their own room that would house there toys and where they would play contentedly together. Ahhh…sounds too perfect. Well the toys ended up scattered in all directions of that room and they always made their way into the living room and kitchen. As much as the girls thought they were cleaning up, guess who did the majority of organizing those toys? Yep, good ‘ole momma. The second factor that helped me make my decision to take away the playroom was the fact that I bought and refinished a monster of a farmhouse table that was too big for my narrow kitchen. I envisioned large gatherings around that table with whoever wanted to join us for dinner. So I just could not part with it. Factor number three, the girls already had an entire art room to create and play. Plus, Grace has a secret room hidden through her closet that I am going to make into an amazing playroom for the girls.  Have you ever read this mom’s reason for taking her kids toys away?  I thought she was onto something. My kids do not need a bazillion toys. They get bored with them after five minutes of playing with them and head to the next thing and the next thing. I did leave some toys out and when they get tired of them I will rotate them with new ones that are stored away. So with that being said I got to work and recruited who else but my amazing husband.  I started ripping carpet and found a nice surprise of wood floors. The only problem was that they were covered in a nasty glue like substance.

This is the point where I thought we could just rent one of those big sanders to get the job done. Well, Brook had other plans. Since the floor was already stained under the glue he thought we should scrape the glue and then sand with an orbital hand sander. I tried to help but I only got two boards scraped and I was complaining. I still tried to argue my opinion of renting the industrial sander for four hours and get it done in a day.  He insisted on doing it his way and stayed up late several nights scraping, sanding, and then sealing. We left the floor in its rustic sanded finish for a week to see if we wanted to sand and stain it a solid color. Everyone that we had over liked the rustic charm of the floor since it is part of a farmhouse. We used this sealer to seal it and it was finished just in time for Hannah’s second birthday. It felt so good to have a room to gather in and a large table to seat all the family who came to celebrate with us.

The bench seating is an old farm bench I found at a yard sale. I painted it to match the gray chairs.

See the beautiful clip on lighting on the window?  We still need to figure out the lighting in the room since there is no overhead lighting. I have some ideas.

The scale on the large crock just got hung last night in the corner.  The jelly cupboard replaces the bright pink game cabinet that was in the playroom. Yes there are toys and games in this beauty. Not pictured is a kitchen set the girls play at very often. I wasn’t a total grinch about there toys. They still have a space of their own and some toys to play with in this dining room.

 

Whoever and wherever you gather this season I hope it is  joyous and merry. Have a very Blessed Christmas and a Happy New Year!