Designing Playspaces: Our Reading Room

S is an avid reader.  Some days we spend (literally!) hours poring over books.  So a Reading Room was a must!  I mentioned in my Playroom post how important I feel presentation is to small children, and I knew immediately that I wanted a WALL of outward facing books.

Pictured:

Lots o' books (you can read the post on our favorite books here)

This was what the room started out looking like.  I felt like the wall below the window on the left was just the perfect height for a wall of built-in bookshelves, so right away I knew this was our future Reading Room.

You know how I said in the Playroom post that hanging things from ceilings and building an indoor rockwall were both easier than you thought?  Well, building your own built-in bookcases is a lot harder than you think.  A lot.  I wish it weren't so!  And I am certainly glad that we did it (and grateful that my parents are still speaking to me after building them - hahaha), but please know that they are a HUGE pain.  If you are not a Do-It-Yourselfer, save yourself the headache and buy a premade outward facing bookshelf.To cut down costs, we used MDF trim pieces (versus true wood) and to save time, I paid a bit more to get the MDF that was primed white.  I did ultimately paint the whole thing with white paint, but this way I could be a bit less, um, detailed with that step and no one would be the wiser.  :)

The hardest parts, other than determining the scale (we wanted consistent "units" along all the walls) and cutting all the different pieces to the correct sizes, were figuring out how to deal with the corners and the floors.  We decided to butt two pieces of wood together in the corners, leaving empty space behind them (so the corners are hollow, if that makes sense) and we decided to just "set" the bookcases on the floor, building up just a slight base.  Because of the length of each "unit" the trim piece that serves as the bar that holds the books in place is not very strong.  When X is pulling to stand, we'll have to keep a close eye on him since that part of the bookcase is fairly delicate.

Once we'd figured out the bookcases, I wanted to decide on a "theme" for the room.  S and I really love spending time outdoors, and given the setting of our house (we basically live in a forest), I felt like a woodland theme was just perfect.  To fit the theme, we painted the room a light blue, like the sky.  

Though I originally wanted green "grass" carpet for the entire room - the cost was too high.  So I settled instead for an accent rug.  I bought this green "grass" rug at Ikea and hand sewed felt toadstools and a yellow banana slug to decorate it.  I literally scoured the internet to find the perfect toadstool seats for the rug and finally found just the right ones (we have two).

Pictured:

Magic Cabin Red Mushroom Stools

Green Ikea Hampen Rug

Handsewn felt toadstools and banana slug

In addition to the toadstool rug and toadstool stools, I wanted some other sort of seating.  Beanbag chairs can be sort of lumpy and I'm not the biggest fan of them in general - but I found a great compromise in this bright blue poof.  It's shaped like a cylinder and it's filled with recycled material instead of poly pellets.  Not to mention it's the perfect size for snuggling up to read.  The walls on this side of the room needed some art, I felt, so I went with a set of prints from one of my favorite artists, Tiffany Ard.  I am constantly looking for excuses to use her art both because it's just awesome and because I was a science major in college and my husband was a math/computer science major - so we're obligated to nerd-up our kids.  :)  As a final touch, I bought a bird's nest at Michaels for "Baby Crow", a stuffed bird that S has loved since she was a baby.  I found the y-shaped branch at a pet store and just hand-screwed it into the drywall.  It's not super secure if you yank on it, but so long as no one is, it hangs just fine that way.

Pictured:

Tiffany Ard art

Jaxx Sac Jr in Blueberry Suede

Beneath the Tiffany Ard art, I wanted to use some clever way of mounting a tank for S's pet Betta fish.  I was thrilled to find these amazing tanks that fit the bill perfectly.

Pictured:

Wall Mount Fish Tanks

I know it's super hard to get a sense of the rooms from my photos.  Particularly since I am shooting in bad lighting conditions with a portrait lens - eek!  So I tried to make a sort of panorama of this room with my point-and-shoot camera.   Please excuse the bad photo "stitching" below.  :)  But this is how the room looks from the closet.  The closet is currently empty, pending development this Christmas.  If I can convince my parents to help me again, I'm planning on converting it into a two-level fort for the kids as their present from us this year.  If it happens, I'll be sure to post an update with photos in December.  :)

Pictured:

Giant Felt Board

Large White Poster of Tiffany Ard art

Hanging Terrariums

Squirrel Decals

Tree and Fox Decals

You can read more about our favorite books and authors here!

Oh, and for those of you who are interested:
You can read about our Art Room design here.
Designing Playspaces:  Our Backyard will be up sometime in June

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Please always supervise your infant/child at play.  Please stay within arms reach and never leave infants/children unattended.