This one is about my daughter Akshara's room - also the second bedroom in our abode. Akshara , our little girl is a spirited 4 Year old. She plays hard, rests light, loves colors ( the more the merrier), animals and polka dots ( she calls them poka dot circles), flowers and butterflies. Typical Girl child.
As a parent, I love the idea of her having a room that is filled with all that she loves and wants reflecting her energetic persona. At the same time I am conscious of her needs for calm and rest along with constructive and creative play time.
For a kids room, I believe the balance between function and fun is a thinner line. We can easily go over board with their dreams and decor. The design enthusiast in me can not agree with many of the things she wants and her choice of colors, but I budge in the end, thinking after all this is her room and her wishes. At this age of hers, there is always the option of not giving choices but my little bee loves it when we ask her opinions and she can voice them aloud. In the end, we are happy when they are happy right!
So the plan and aim is to have a balance b/w all these components - Function, space, decor, dreams, colors and budget.
This room is larger one of the two bedrooms we have. More on that part of story is here. This is also the only place for her to play when the living/Dining/Kitchen room is full of distractions ( as in guests or a movie)
Function wise we need a number of things from the space.
Also, when we have overnight guests, we pass over the master for them and squeeze in here.
I have tried to bring all these needs without splurging on anything or going over board or even braking the bank. Honestly everything that is in the room would come under $600 and that includes all the major furniture, Paint and even small décor there.
Anyways, here is the plan I drew up.
I wanted something special and easy to do on the walls with polka dots. So I drew up different patterns to see how they will look on the walls. We had decided on the paint for the walls which was a light blue. How and why that color, that is a long story but I will save it for some other time.
But what we bought first was this rug. All these things happened months ago and Akshara was big on bugs and animals, she still is, so when I found this rug on sale in Zulily I just bought it.
Anyways I created a mood board including the major furniture pieces that we wanted with the rug and paint color as guideline. I did it with the old and classic paper and pencil because at that time, I had not checked out the whole concept of mood boards and websites available to create them. Polyvore is a fun place for mood boards. (now anyone asks me for an opinion, I make a mood board to show them vibe you will get from the room)
The plan evolved over time and the implementation was slow - not by choice - you can throw in this blog, other writing commitments, summer months and even pure laziness in terms of reasons. Anyways the room has come to a point where we are done with it for now.
Today is the flashback part of this story. The present, the "now" comes on Friday - It is like the mega soaps on TV ( oh, I am eagerly waiting for Continuum and a 24 Series on TV, If those producers could be kind enough for another season??) - To be Continued......
How do you plan your rooms? How would you like to visualize the rooms? Do you Like mood boards? Detailed plan drawn on paper? A 3D representation? All of it? Please let me know your thoughts, would love to hear them.
Keep Smiling,
Anima
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