Outings with the Ottingers: Daydreaming about the Kids' New Rooms

I have, for months, now been thinking about how to decorate a combined space that both Kason and Emily would love. You see, even though we have 4 bedrooms, one is downstairs. I am not yet willing to put Kason down there alone, so he will be moving into Emily's room very soon.

So far, we have a new bed for him. The IKEA Kura bed. It is a low loft bed. For now, we will have the bed on the bottom, but later on, when Emily is ready to move out of her crib, we will flip it and build a small frame on the bottom making it low bunk beds.

The Kura bed (we got the tunnel to go with)

Now, the hard part was coming up with a theme, or even colors, that would work for both. Then, I became inspired. The walls are a beautiful olive green, but I was having a hard time coming up with boy bedding that would fit the room. That is, until I found my inspiration.

My Inspiration - this bouquet of flowers + the navy dress in the background = the perfect mix of colors for a boy and a girl and the olive walls

Emily's bedding, for now, will be just a pink sheet with a frilly bed skirt. Later on, she will move into a twin bed with a raspberry comforter (already purchased). Kason will have a navy comforter (also, already purchased). Sheets are still up in the air, but I am leaning towards letting them pick their own, as they won't really be seen and doing a solid color sham with a navy/white throw pillow for each.

I plan to make curtains in the same, or a coordinating navy/white fabric as well as a small curtain to cover their hanging clothes in the closet. Since the doors of the closet open up into the room and I want them to have as much space as possible, we will be taking the doors off. So, hanging clothes will be covered at the top, with their dresser and large toys at the bottom.

After coming up with the color theme, I finally decided on a 'theme theme' for the room...Dr. Seuss. More specifically, Oh, the Places You'll Go and I Can Ready with My Eyes Shut. Kason loves Dr. Seuss and these two books will go together nicely. So, now, I am in extreme planning/buying mode to make this room come together. This weekend, we will put Kason's bed together and make a quick trip to IKEA to return some items and pick up a couple more things.

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Now, for the new nursery...Kyle really doesn't want to change Kason's bedding out, but I really want our newest addition to have his *own* space. So, I purchased some Route 66 fabric that will go nicely with the blue walls and will be making a quilt. The fabric is my inspiration for the room. I would like to find some old road signs to put up, along with a few framed pics of vintage cars and places along Route 66. I'm still in the very early planning stages, so we will see how it comes together. Since Kyle really doesn't want to change it (mostly doesn't want to spend the extra $$ when we already have nursery stuff), I am going to have to be very thrifty here.

The Route 66 fabric