Bunk beds!!

Did I tell you we decided to stop looking for houses again?  Deep down we knew the time wasn't right, but we were in a slight state of denial and had convinced ourselves that the time could be right...But it's not. It's really not. So we stopped again, and we are relieved in a sense and bummed in another.  To deal, we decided to live in the house we are in now rather than continuing in this limbo-like state.  See, we were procrastinating with getting Hannah's room set up properly and also with finding ways to incorporate (i.e., properly store and organize her toys) her stuff into the house.  We kept telling ourselves there was no point in doing anything until we moved and were able to spread out a bit and figure things out, but that's just not true.  We need to make this house functional and learn to live in the space we have. So we bought bunk beds!

We wrapped up my old queen sized bed which has been hogging up her room since before she was born, shoved it in the garage, and then set up some new This End Up bunk beds that we found on Craig's List with a dresser and book case for $475!  I had never heard of that name brand, but it is SWEET! It's this gorgeous, solid wood furniture that weighs a butt load!  Buh-bye creaky IKEA dresser that threatens to collapse no matter how many times Eric (and once Joel) hammer the daylights out of it.  Buh-bye flimsy book case!  (It should be noted that both of those pieces of furniture were also bought used on CL...but they were purchased all the way back in '06 when I moved into this house and were NOT built to last, obviously!)

I took a few before pics of Hannah's room to show the contrast, but I took the pics after I'd started pulling stuff out so they make her room look a little worse than it actually was...She liked playing on those bouncy seats, but I've got all that stuff packed away now!

"Before" shot of Hannah's room from the doorway.

"Before" shot taken standing on the bed.

"Before" shot taken from the window wall looking out the door and down the hall.

Okay, now for the transformation!! I love a good makeover, and I think Hannah's room got an awesome one!

But first, I want you to know that this is not my favorite model of bunk bed on the This End Up website because of the solid wood headboards and the ladder that juts out into the middle of the floor.  I had a feeling it would look and feel heavy and would block critical light. It's not blocking the window too bad, but it's not ideal. It would definitely be better if we had this model with open slats on either end that double as a ladder.  But we'd have paid three times as much if we'd bought it new, so solid headboards it is!!

"After" shot taken from the door. 

The bunk beds! Hannah loves them.

"After" shot taken from the bunk beds.

Her sweet new book case. (Which has enough space to enable us to get rid of that  toy trunk--which I've had since high school--and open up even more floor space.)

"After" shot taken from the window wall.

First snuggle up in the new beds!   

It's like a whole new room in there, and it's WAY more functional!  There's tons of floor space, her toys are organized on the shelves, her clothes are spread out in more drawers allowing for better organization and accessibility, and with the bunk beds centered on that wall, there's a couple feet on either end so that I can easily access the closet on one side and the window blinds on the other--a task that previously required crawling all over the queen bed.

More importantly, Hannah LOVES her new furniture.  The second we got them set up and spread out the super sweet memory foam mattresses we picked up at IKEA, she was up the ladder and giving it a test jump.  I ran for the video camera to capture her hysterical first impression:

She is not sleeping in them yet, and I'm not in a huge hurry for her to do so. Frankly, I kinda like her having bars around while she sleeps....It forces her to eventually give up playing and go to sleep, and I'm not sure she'll do that once she's trusted with the freedom to move around.  I did let her try to nap in the bottom bunk on the first two days (at her insistence), and surprisingly, she stayed in bed.  She didn't sleep though so after about an hour I moved her, kicking and screaming, to her crib.  There's no rush...yet.