As you may know, Bean needs a room. After 10 years of living with all boys, I am bound and determined to exercise my right to girly-fy something in my house. I’ve already got the inspiration; it’s the execution that is proving to be elusive.

After an inordinate amount of internet surfing, I fell absolutely in love with this bedding from Polka Tot designs, and thought I found my jumping-off point.

And then, I had a much-needed budget reality check, and decided that I better start back at square one.

Before we get to all that, let’s take a look at the room in question. Bean’s room was our former office, which in some past life, was probably a bedroom. Technically, the room had a closet, but the former owners of our home converted the closet into the laundry, because it is deep enough for the stackable front-loading washers and dryers. I am eternally grateful that they did, because otherwise, it would be a trek to our detached garage and back for clean clothes, and my abject laziness would have rioted.

Here’s Wall 1:

It has great windows and built-ins, but has an extra door to the rear of our house, despite the fact that we also have an exterior door in our kitchen. To the left, you can see the aforementioned closet-now-laundry. The color scheme in this room is the same as the ENTIRE house (white walls, beige/brownish trim). Trust me, the previous owners were really into this color-scheme, down to the flowers in the landscaping. My husband and I have left it alone since we’ve moved in, mostly out of laziness. However, every room is the same, and we are getting kind of tired of it.

Here’s Wall 2:

This is the wall the crib will go on. The door pictured here leads to the kitchen.

Wall 3:

This is the weird wall. As you can see, the entire wall is built-in storage (and those cabinets are REALLY deep), so I’m not too concerned about the lack of closet issue. In fact, I can probably run a rod through one (or all) of them for hanging up clothes. However, those windows look into the dining room, so some type of curtains or window treatments will be necessary. The catch is ensuring whatever I put there looks good on BOTH sides, because I will be able to see it in the dining room.

Finally, Wall 4:

This wall is also tricky, because putting furniture on it that won’t hinder opening the cabinets on Wall 3 is a challenge. The small cabinet by the door is a former built-in ironing board thingie, but it now houses some very small shelves. Good storage, but limited uses. The door leads to the Heathen’s room, and you’ve already met the laundry closet.

Other than the gorgeous crib, this room is a weird, blank canvas.

Now, we just have to figure out what to do with it.