Charlie's Closet

We played around a bit with the layout of our house to have a place for Charlie to sleep. We do have three bedrooms, and the boys share one, but the extra room is quite large, right next to the boys, and all the way down the hall from me. OK, so the hall isn't that long, but in the middle of the night, it might as well have the dimensions of Versailles' Hall of Mirrors.

Fortunately, we have a largish closet in our room (about 8 feet by 7) with a little window. It was poorly set up as a closet and we were looking into getting new rods, shelves, etc., when it occurred to me that it could be a nice little baby room. Right next to ours, and not close to the boys where the baby could wake them (or they could wake the baby) at inappropriate times.

And there's a large closet in the hall with rods and shelves that works quite well for a master closet. So we did the switcheroo, bought some paint, and Charlie (since he is already too large for his cradle - waaaa!) is now nicely installed in the closet.

I did take before pictures, but am afraid they were replaced with other files (I was having camera/computer/3-year-old-helper problems a couple weeks ago), so you only get to see the after. But trust me, it's an improvement - David did a wonderful job humoring me. And patching and sanding.

About the time I was trying to decide how to paint the room, Auntie S gave us this quilt, which my grandmother made. My grandma has made such a quilt for most of her 27 grandchildren, and Calvin and Henry also have quilts with her trademark points on the edges. Auntie S also handed down a set of red and white gingham bedding that tied into the little gingham squares in the quilt.

I matched the red color then chose a ccomplimentary blue color with the color selector at Home Depot, and that's where I got the colors for the stripes on the walls.

Then I did a gingham treatment on the dresser drawers (which needs some serious touch-up, but I'll get to it later...)


My favorite part of it is this poster for a book festival David and I went to right after he came home from Iraq. I am going to have it matted and framed for the wall. It has the light blue and dark blue colors (which, in real life, match the walls), and wonderful red and white accents. Plus it's by a Russian artist, Gennady Spirin, whose whimsical and beautiful illustrations I love. (He has a children's alphabet book that I am currently dreaming of and drooling over...)

David says the room reminds him of the Hotel Monaco, a boutique hotel where we've stayed a couple of times. That makes me happy because I like the style - kinda eclectic, with modern and traditional elements and lots of color and bold patterns. I'm going to get a soft rug for the floor and maybe paint some library book shelves for baby board books, but I'm really liking the little space.

Perhaps it will even be boutique enough to be forgiven for keeping my baby in a closet.