Ah completion.

This post comes at reader-request.

:)

For much of Henry and Sophia's life, their playroom looked like this:
(And yes, in case you were wondering that is a piece of gutter in the background.)

NB that was the 'playful' side of the playroom. The other side had the air-of-industrial and looked like this:

Charming, I know. HG TV was calling me up asking me to be on Design Star. I just *had* to turn them down - the children must come before my budding interior design career.

Admittedly, I didn't always have a room which looked so in-process. My blank canvas of a house is rather small (but we're happy in it).

Its more sketchbook size (our house is about 900 square feet for those who haven't been here).

So we *used* to have a dining room. It was nice - it had a table, chairs, a cabinet to keep my aunt's 1950s China.

AND it had a cute chandelier-in-miniature as well as nice prints on the wall (printed by our friend Mary-Kate):

But somewhere along the line....like...oh...I don't know, when we found out we were having twins, Tony and I decided the dining room was no longer a responsible choice.

What we needed was space.

Stat.

And as this room was not suited for being a bedroom (I am not the type of person who could have a baby in a room with a sliding glass door...sorry!) It became designated as the playroom.

And Henry and Sophia share a bedroom.

Which is just fine.

But they have this space to play in:

Tony installed a ceiling fan and the faux-chandelier went away. We set up the pack-n-play as an alternative nap space, I hung up my collection of Dutch prints (and framed the postcards) on the wall, we re-purposed the bureau (filled with kids clothes, extra bibs, their Bjorn, sneakers for when they are 2) and put out their mini-wagon and handmade bears my friend Teri knitted...

...we bought a new carpet.


I primed-and-painted the walls.  (Um...applause? No easy feat - but totally doable thanks to nap-time).

[The color, in case you were wondering is called Sky-Blue-Sky (available at Land of Nod) its on alternating walls. I am not a firm believer in four-walls=same-color.]

Oh yes, and we filled it with their toys.

I bought these fabulous canvas bins, marked them 'Toys' (I have a way with titles, I know) and put everything in them.

We filled the shelves with their beautiful books (from our mothers!), the handmade 'stuffed letters' from my friend Dianne (who hand-sewed all the letters of their name and stuffed them with batting), a handmade cloth number book (and several quilts) from our friend Mrs. Wilson:

The bookcase is one Tony made from the old cellar stars (and then he painted them Pollock-style with primary colors).

I put up the shelf we bought at the farmer's market by Rustic Wood Creations, the clothespin bag my friend Amanda made, their two hats, the French toy from Mary Kate and the solar (and crank) powered L.L. Bean radio:

And we made sure they'd have easy access to the kitchen:

The finishing touch? I know, this whole thing has been remarkably moving. Would you guess I don't give a damn about decorating? The other 800 square feet is very uninspiring; maybe I'll post pictures someday...

Anyway, I had some extra paint and so painted up some canvases to match the walls.

And just this week had time to work on them.
And so I painted the moon -
the stars -
and the clouds for the twins to look up.

And for anyone who knows me, that was my favorite part.

That and being able to have a spot filled with so many wonderful homemade items for them.

My babies truly are blessed.