Our Sweet Playroom Makeover

I am so happy that you are here to look at our playroom makeover! We are so proud and we are really loving it.

 

Our playroom used to be cluttered, full of tiny trinkets that made big messes and toys that never got played with. It was exhausting to go these two routes to get it cleaned:

1. Nag and nag to get it all picked up

                or

2. Take forever to get it cleaned and organized myself

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It was a losing battle on all fronts. So I thought and thought and decided to:

1. Minimize toys (especially the tiny ones that create nothing but chaos and punctured soles of feet)

2. Keep/get stuff they actually play with (hint: it doesn't have to be toys... and that was my "aha!" moment)

Here, you can see the pillows that I sewed and our beautiful all-natural, earth-friendly ballerina and all-natural cotton and recycled fiber fairy dolls.

We started out by taking out our foam letters and numbers mat. It was messy, it was too colorful, it was too babyish. Instead, we got this faux grass rug. It is an outdoor rug, but not the lesser quality kind. I made sure this was the best rug we could afford. Not only so it can last longer, but it will look really nice. 

If you want to get something like this, I recommend that you stay away from the mini-golf kind of rugs (really short, stiff and prickly). This rug is beautiful, soft, excellent quality and it actually does look like grass.  

I bought some dark green burlap, some mossy oak fabric and some suede brown fabric to sew some pillows. They were super simple to make. My sewing machine worked perfectly for this.

Our 6-cube organizer has books that are hardcover books as well as board books (easier to get in and out and clean up) and bins that fit to size. We have all kinds of musical instruments in the baskets on top of the shelf.
 

In the corner, we have a re-purposed wine wooden box to keep our wooden blocks, our wooden building blocks and our mega legos. We love our Peter Rabbit and our teddy bear made with alpaca hair (bought in Peru). 

We have pieces of tree trunks to use as seats or as decoration. I let my children stand on them, but not jump off of them. You can see some rocks there, too. Yes, they are real rocks. They are beautiful find on one of our nature walks. We are allowed to stand on them, but we are not allowed to pick them up.
 

This is what our playroom looks like now. I attached two "clotheslines" across the bay window to hang up our artwork with wooden clothespins.

And now, on to our nature table. It is actually a train set table, but I turned the top over to where it shows a dark brown, instead of the train track picture. I put the wooden puzzle tracks away for now. I love to have a vase with fresh flowers at the center. We have two dark bamboo trays (one for each of my children). They put their nature walk treasure finds on their trays. 

The pint mason jar contains some of the sand we got when we went to the beach a few weeks ago. We use our awesome magnifying glasses to look at it and examine it, but we don't take it off the table (for safety reasons).
 

   

Here are some of the treasures they have found.
 

This beautiful sage woven placemat is used to build towers or to isolate objects that they want to play with/examine.
 

Here, you can see them playing their spelling word game on the grass rug. Is is soft, it is nice, it is enjoyable. Almost like sitting outside. They really, really enjoy their playroom now and they spend time there without huge messes and chaos.

   

We hope you have enjoyed looking at our playroom makeover and may it inspire you to bring nature inside, too.
What was your favorite part? What have we inspired you to do?

Visit our "Awesome Playrooms and Classrooms" board on Pinterest!  

Here are three posts that also encourage nature play:

Purple Freckles

The Educators' Spin on it

Edventures with Kids