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Ayla’s New Bedroom: How to Smooth a Toddler’s Home Transition

by on Jun 12, 2012


Life is a little crazy around our house(es) these days. Our days are spent preparing for a baby in just a few short week, remodeling our new house, packing up our old house, and wrangling a 3-year-old, leaving little time for anything else. In the brief moments of pause, I’m either napping or thinking about how to make the transitions that are coming in the next several weeks smooth for everyone in our family, especially Ayla. So, I’ve been dreaming up her new bedroom, which will likely be the only finished room in the house when move in day arrives.  

I only moved twice as a child, and I distinctly remember my mom making a conscious effort to have my brother’s bedroom and my bedroom complete the day we moved in. Our bedrooms were painted, decorated, furnished, and the sheets were washed, with a special note placed on our pillows. Opening the door to my new bedroom in a new house and having the whole room specifically set up for me was such a comforting thing. I am sure my little brother felt the same. And it made the moves go so smoothly for us.

Ayla's room, currently

Now that my family is making our own big move, I find myself so appreciative of the thought and planning my mom put into creating special rooms for their children during a time of big change. I also find myself baffled by how she managed to get two rooms completely put together in the midst of total chaos. I’m hoping this gift is genetic so that I can do the same for our little girl, who will be experiencing her fair share of change in the coming weeks. 

I’m realizing that the magic is in the planning, so I’m carefully creating lists and organizing boxes as I put Ayla’s new room together. It has been a fun process, full of lots of Pinterest action and fabric and paint swatches. If it were up to Ayla, her room would be several shades of pink (or black, depending on her mood). While I want to honor her love affair with pink, I also want to make the room a little more balanced. I have long loved the combination of coral and aqua, and have decided to use this duo as the driving color forces in her room. Fortunately, she digs this combo too. In fact, she tells people that the walls of her new room will be “greenish-blue” and that everything else will be “pink!”. She’s sort-of right.

So far, I’ve purchased a couple of pieces to guide the room’s color palette. I ordered the Pink Crow’s Feet rug from Land of Nod. The coral and off-white combination is perfect, and the pattern adds a little modern flair to the more traditional furniture we’ll be using in her room. It might be my favorite rug in the world. It should also go nicely with the Taj Pink duvet cover I ordered by Rickshaw Designs (unfortunately this beauty is on backorder and won’t arrive until late-July).

Land of Nod - Crow's Feet Rug
Rickshaw Design Taj Pink Duvet

Since we’ll be moving her glider into the baby’s room, I wanted to order some sort of seating for her bedroom so that we’d still have a place to read to her. After debating whether to go with another glider or accent chair, I purchased this settee in Paris Blue from angelo:HOME. This purchase was a little risky, as I have no idea where its color falls on the “aqua” scale (it looks like more of a powder blue), but since I haven’t purchased paint yet, I’m thinking it will work with the coral and help guide me in a nice “blue/green” direction for the wall coloring. 

angelo:HOME Dover Settee

We currently have a bright white bed, night stand, and bookshelf that we’ll be moving from her old room to her new room. I’m in the process of bringing a little color to these pieces by adding paint to the back panels for the night stand and bookshelf. And, I plan to replace the hardware on the night stand with something a little more colorful. I just picked up something very similar to this knob at Anthropologie – score! 

Serena & Lily Punch Paint Swatch

I’ve also been gathering artwork, frames, scraps of fabric, wallflowers, etc. to decorate her room. I can not tell you how strange it is to frame a picture and place it in a box marked “A’s Room: Decor” rather than hang it up on the wall. But, this is how I’m rolling.

Heather Dutton Seafoam Coral Fabric Spoonflower
Serena & Lily Coral Jaipur Fabric
BELIEVE IT - DazeyChic Etsy Shop
Umbra Wall Flowers

So, right now the room is a hodge-podge in boxes. It’s the strangest experience I’ve ever had putting a room together, and it’s outcome will truly be a surprise; let’s hope it’s a good one. Giving Ayla her own little space in a world of “new” makes this room feel like the most important one in the house. 

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