When we first spotted our home on the internet years before we actually bought it, we fell in love with the checkerboard floors, the leopard carpets, and the stone walls in the garden. The owners hadn’t put up photos of the attic in the listing, so when we finally visited the home that would end up being ours, to say we were pleasantly surprised is an understatement.
Here it is a few days after we moved in, set up with just an old rocking chair and an inflatable mattress (and a lot of books).
I think it’s just the coolest room ever, and wanted to make sure we took the time to figure out how we’d make the best use of it: I didn’t want it to end up as a sort of catchall/storage room, filled with boxes of old clothing and outgrown toys. After we lived in the house for a few months, we realized that what made the most sense was to transform the space (which is pretty big; it spans the entire top floor of our house) into a half-playroom, half-guest room.
Want to see the end result?!
For the playroom side, we imported the toys that had been cluttering up our living room and bought a circus tent, rug, and desk set from Ikea (that, if you recall, was the Meltdown Trip). I also moved our big orange chair (the one that used to be in our living room) upstairs so that I’d have somewhere cozy to curl up and work or read while Indy plays.
The other side of the attic was transformed into a guest room that doubles as an extra living area when we don’t have people staying over.
Aside from the futon (which we bought new on Overstock), it’s basically just a collection of pieces that didn’t work anywhere else in our house (the nightstand that I transformed into a dog bed for Lucy, my grandmother’s old rocking chair, our old living room rug, a painting by my Nanny Ruth, a branch chandelier that Kendrick found on Etsy)…but I think that’s what a family room should be. Nothing fancy: just stuff that you like having around. Comfortable stuff. Stuff that makes you happy.
That’s what this room ended up being: a place that just makes me happy.
