As we begin to transition our sweet baby girl (who is almost two!) into a shared room with her big brother (in preparation for baby #3 to arrive!), I wanted to photograph her room and share how we set it up in our Washington home.
As I searched around the house for my wide angled lens I realized I have not photographed one room of this house with my "big camera." Between our lack of sunlight and the craziness of life this past year has been, we have been simply going with the flow. And while I miss my days of styling and photographing, taking a little break has been good.
While I looked through and edited these photos I was reminded of a recent change in perspective I have been having. Between a different home with different design challenges and spending this past year mostly at home, I have realized it was more important that my home was functioning well than looking picture worthy. As a home decor blogger of so many years, this has been a hard thing to let go of. It was a level of expectation I have been holding on to that began to be a burden as life so strangely changed this past year.
So while I still believe this room is lovely, I admit I like it more in person than I do in photos. And it made me realize that it was more important to focus on how a room feels than how it photographs. An analogy for so many things in life! But one that particularly is freeing me to be more present in my home.
Here is the listing photo of this room before we bought it (notice the lack of door and wall which I will mention again later in the post):
And here it is now!
Her room is mostly the same as it was in Virginia (you can see it here) minus the larger windows and year round sunlight! The only new addition is the rug, which I absolutely love! So while we traded in larger rooms and more light we gained much closer proximity to some of my favorite stores. I found this rug at my first stop to HomeGoods when I began my search and it was love at first sight!
We are very excited for our baby boy to come but I will admit I was a little sad that this rug would not be used again for this nursery. I am determined to find another place for it in our house. And if anything, I will store it away until we transition the boys to a shared room and our girl will have her own room again.
The blue love seat was a great find back in Virginia (Pottery Barn outlet!). Unfortunately when we got it home it has always felt much bigger than I would like for the size of the space. In Virginia we had enough space to tuck it away so it never truly felt like it overtook the room. But in a smaller space, it can be a bit overwhelming. But I would say we use it more than ever (minus back when I was feeding a baby on it in the middle of the night). I often get my two kids cuddled up here for a few stories before we have nap. And it has a pull out twin bed that we have been able to use with guests. So while I do not love it to pieces, it has functioned very well for us.
The colors in this room are a bit out of my normal color palette. So I have enjoyed having this space to play with whites, pinks, and wood tones.
Upstairs are the two kid's bedrooms and a bathroom. They have heat upstairs but no air conditioning (another new thing for us!). While the summers here are pretty mild, we did have one week this past summer that was pretty hot and I felt horrible that the kid's room were so warm at night. So when it came to picking out replacement lighting, we decided to go with ceiling fans. I would have loved some cute lighting but again, function came as a higher importance.
While our home was advertised as a three bedroom, this room didn't actually have a door or enclosing wall. Thankfully that was in our favor as to the price and the location of our home. We knew Brent could put up a wall and it made the home less appealing to other potential buyers. So he put up a wall! But has yet to finish it! One of these days!!! ;)
At least our daughter can sleep without extra outside noise!
But putting in a new white door made such a difference (most of our doors are an outdated wood). And one of these days I would like to at least paint the closet doors white, if not replace them.
I still cannot believe our little girl has spent the majority of her life in this room now. Time has sure flown by and soon we will have another little one nestled in here! I am excited to update it with some new pieces for our little guy that will come in the next few months. Until then, a chapter closes for our baby girl as she transitions to her big girl room. We know she is going to love it...we just wish we could hold on to those baby days a little while longer!
