Sunday, April 7, 2013

Renter Re-Vamp: Circus Nursery

     My husband's military career has caused us to move...a lot. A whole lot. As in, I've moved no less than ten times in the nine years we've been married. Eek! I thought that we would be staying in the house we're in now for the next few years until we PCS to somewhere else. (PCS stands for Permanent Change of Station. It means the military is moving you to a different duty station.) It doesn't look like that's going to be the case due to some issues we're having with our neighbors, but moving is nothing new to us.
     One of the challenges of moving, is decorating. Often times in rentals there's a lot of rules about what you can and cannot do to the house, and even if you are allowed to do something like paint, you typically have to paint it back before you move out. However, since we don't tend to stay in any place for more than a year, painting is something that just isn't worth it to us. Everything that we do in terms of decorating needs to be something that we can easily take down and move with us to the next space. So working within those parameters, we've been trying to spruce up the kids' rooms. I, in particular, have become a bit obsessed with Nicola's room.
     Way back when I was pregnant I decided I wanted a vintage circus type of theme. Originally I thought that Nicola and Hickory would be sharing a room, so I wanted something gender neutral. As it turned out, we ended up moving out of that house in Oklahoma and up to Idaho so Nic is in a small room of her own, but I loved the theme and colors so much I decided to keep it going anyway. It's still a work in progress, but so far it looks like this:
Ignore that bag of clothes in the corner. It has since been taken to the local Goodwill.
    The crib and dresser are both from Ikea and the bentwood rocking chair is the chair that my mom rocked my older brother and I in when we were babies. The caning on the seat has started to give way, but I keep going back and forth on whether I want to re-cane it, or if I want to put in upholstered pieces of wood for the seat and back instead. Do I want to keep the natural wood tones, or do I want to paint it a fun color? Draped across the ceiling you can see just a peak of a garland made of yarn pom poms. It's hard to tell in this picture, but the poms are in a gold, deep red, black, deep red, gold pattern. I made that at the end of my pregnancy after I just couldn't find a pennant bunting I liked and I didn't feel like going to through the trouble of finding the fabrics and cutting and sewing one myself. Who has the energy for that in the third trimester?
     On the wall above the crib, featured in the middle photo is sort of my inspiration for the room. It's a piece of vintage reproduction circus fabric and I love everything about it. It's blue with deep red and golden tones and I loved it so much I just couldn't bear the idea of cutting it into smaller pieces to make something, so I bought the biggest embroidery hoop my local craft store had and framed the fabric in the hoop. Originally I bought the fabric with the intention of making it into window valances, but when you move the windows are always different sizes, so I think this works out much better. The two picture frames in her room, the blue one on the wall and the black one on the dresser were both gifts from my lovely friend, Cortny, who threw me the most spectacular aqua and red baby shower ever. The blue frame is actually handcrafted by her dad. Inside the black frame is red polka dot scrapbook paper, and for inside the blue frame I printed off Proverbs 3:24 which says, "When you lie down you will not be afraid; when you lie down, your sleep will be sweet." in a circus font that I downloaded for free. The yellow N and the strongman were both Etsy finds, the sock monkey toy was a Christmas gift from her uncle, and the wooden horse used to sit on my dresser when I was little. I love that she has little things from my childhood in her room.

     Like I said, it's still a work in progress. She desperately needs some curtains for her windows. The poor things just look so naked. I'd also like to put her strongman in a shadow box and hang it on the wall by the rocking chair where the blue frame and her initial are. I think some more fabric is smaller embroidery hoops would be nice to compliment her big hoop, and I have ALWAYS wanted to paint the crib. Ideally, I'd like the paint the top, bottom, and corner pieces a light blue and the rungs gold, then add circular pieces to the legs so that it looks like a circus wagon. Maybe once it's consistently warm outside I can get cracking on that project. If/When she ever moves into a bigger room, I'd like to frame some vintage circus posters for her wall as well.

     Overall, I love it. It's whimsical without being babyish. Are you a renter, too?? How do you handle decorating a temporary space?

1 comment:

  1. What an utterly charming, joyfully fun theme for a youngster's room (heck, I'm 28 and I'd love a circus themed room). I think you've done a great job here and bet your little ones just love this space.

    ♥ Jessica

    *PS* That's really cool that you have a friend who lives in Fort St. John! I've never been that far north in province yet (it's about 13.5 hours by car from where I currently live), but absolutely love to venture up that way one day.

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