Last fall I looked around the girls room and immediately became overwhelmed by the amount of toys we had accumulated. I can safely say that Ryan and I were responsible for maybe 20% of the toys, the rest coming from birthday parties, hand me downs, grandparent visits and holidays. I also looked around and couldn’t think of the last time my girls touched the toys after receiving them. Our home is small and with that each room doubles as another thing and with the pandemic the walls felt like they were continuously closing in on us as if we had fallen into the trash compacter in Star Wars (deep cut). Our basement was partially finished with cement floors and we had been using it as our “studio”. By studio I mean the room that artwork goes to die and spray cans, paint gallons and ladders accumulate making it impossible to even walk through - oh! and all my Tachee inventory was down there making each order that needed to be fulfilled like a dash in Legends of the Hidden Temple. What was a Pinterest obsessed and forever project manager to do?
I told the grandparents not to buy any toys [I’ll let you guess if that worked or not] and told them we wanted to surprise the girls with a playroom and we would just need help with installing the floor and watching the girls so we could work on the room in secrecy.
We used left over paint from mural jobs to create a mural for the girls. We’d casually ask them if they were to want a mural what would it have. The answers were quick and simple bunnies, strawberries and poop emojis. We moved random furniture out of storage and the girls room to set up the room and then we donated a large portion of the toys and I organized the remaining toys so everything had a spot.
I think in the end the only thing we bought outside of the flooring, was a washable wool rug and a couple decorative touches from target but the project was largely repurposed existing items from the house.
The Christmas day reveal was what parenting dreams are made of. It also felt great knowing we had had collaborated on something for our toughest clients.
Ryan documented the process and we got some attention from our friends at Downeast Maine Homes and had the honor of Tara Rice photographing the girls enjoying the room.