Sunday, August 22, 2010

Behind Curtain #1...

What we NEED is an upright photographer.

But since that's obviously not available.... What do you suppose is behind this curtain?




I'll give you a hint:  It's a remodel.

Yes, a cheap, easy, unlikely one, which are the type we are wont to do around here.  I just saw someone's little closet-into-coat-tree remodel, hailing utmost frugality (and truly most of the 'big' stuff was free, acquired from elsewhere in their house), to the tune of *cough* $152.  Wow.  Mine is fairly more useful (to us, anyway), and I don't think it added up to that!

Forty or fifty dollars worth of wood and hardware (screws, a couple brackets), $36 of foam, $10 curtain rod and $6 shower-curtain hooks (those last two on clearance).  The fabric was from my stash, as were the little eyelets through which the hooks go.


It's my girls' new room makeover.  The wall you're looking at is about 11 feet long (you're only seeing the rightmost 6 feet or so) and consists (consisted) of two closets with sliding doors.  The wall that should've separated them was never built, so you could go into one closet and exit the other.  Hubby gave me permission to saw off the rightmost six feet of closet-rod and the shelf above, and when my dad was here over Independence Day weekend, he helped Hubby build this fabulous "closet bunkbed."


The beds are about six feet long, and two feet wide (27" wide to the front edge).  The middle one is about countertop-height, and the high one is about 64" or so from the floor (measuring to the bottom of the bunk).  I found "camping foam" on sale for MUCH cheaper than the high-density foam at JoAnn fabrics (even at 50% off).  One of them is actually a pretty dense foam, but both work.  I cut them from 30" wide to fit the shape of the beds and tucked them in.  The front rail you see is actually from a piece of 'fencing' wood.  Half-inch plywood makes up the platforms and the 'wall' you see at the head of the beds.  Organique's bed is on the floor; her crib mattress doesn't fill the whole space, but fits decently enough for her.  Big Sister climbs up and slithers in at the top of the former 'doorway,' and has plenty of headroom and space up there.

This means three girls only need a 2x6' space for sleeping, total!  The bunkbeds and toddler bed have been removed from the room, freeing up a LOT of space, obviously.  I am loving it, and am almost jealous of their fun little sleeping cubbies!

Of course, since this photo was taken, Organique played Tarzan on the curtains and they have yet to be repaired and replaced.  She also managed to roll the crib to the vicinity (when she wasn't busy using it as a battering ram to knock down the baby gates at the door) to crawl high and breach big Sister's bed, tearing down all her tacked-up coloring pages and pillaging the area.  Little Artist's bed is easier to get to (a few pillows/toys makes a good stepstool) and there is Crayola™ marker on the wall and doorframe at that level.  *sigh*  I'm praying that Organique will eventually civilize.  And I'm doing my best to help it along, I promise.

In the meantime, yes, we put our kids in the closet.  And they love it.  :)

11 comments:

MamaJ said...

Cool! What a neat idea! Is Big Sister always going to be able to wiggle in there? You need bars on Organique's bunk, lol. I'll have to go check out the camping foam, we need something for Baby Girl's daybed.

Rachel said...

I would have LOVED that as a kid! Nice job :)

sariah said...

Those are fun! Very creative!

Shannon said...

I love this!!! Now my mind is racing with ideas! We have 3 kids (under 6) and only about 800-900 sq ft living area. We have been racking our brains to figure somthing out but kept thinking twin mattresses wouldn't fit in the closet. I never even thought outside the box to an option other than a twin mattress. This is great! Thanks for the inspiration.

Headmistress, zookeeper said...

Very impressive! In one of our houses we put kids in the closet,too. Ours had Japanese futons (not the American style foam furniture), on the floor.

Actually, we used the closet in another house, too- our walk in closet was the toddler's bedroom there.

EllaJac said...

Shannon, I'm so glad this has given you some ideas! We're loving it.

DHM, thank you for your visit and comment! I have seen a walk-in-closet used as a baby nursery. I love your frugal, outside-the-box ideas gleaned from all your homes/moves through the years.

The Pennington Point said...

I love this idea. We've gotta think outside the box for sure. It's perfect. I'm curious, do you get flack from family member (grandparents)? My folks get upset when our kids don't have traditional spaces and I was just imagining what they would say about this. :) Lisa~

EllaJac said...

Pennington, we haven't had any negative comments on this. Amusement is probably the most common reaction. This could be because we already do so many things which garner "flack" that this hardly hits the radar. :)

Grateful for Grace said...

Never would I have guessed what was behind that curtain! Darling and clever. I bet the girls love it!

Anonymous said...

How is this working 5 years later? Just wondering how well it grew with the kids.

EllaJac said...

Anonymous, we have had some unexpected life changes and we moved away from this home in 2014. Until then it was still in use, though we had rearranged a bit and the oldest was using a twin bed in the same room. Our new (but older) home doesn't have this option, but the oldest has removed some closet doors and put the head of her bed in the closet space, with her side table also inside. It makes for a kind of cozy nook.