I loved the way the girls room used to look, but unfortunately it quite quickly became impractical. The biggest problem being a lack of storage, for both their clothes and their toys. Resulting in a constant build up of piles. So to speak.

We knew that we would have to change things around once Lily was out of her cot, but to begin with we assumed we could make it work without resorting to bunk beds. I had this totally unrealistic plan of having two matching white antique style wooden beds, side by side (I was obviously picturing a much, much bigger room!) and figured that we would just fudge the storage issues somehow.

We pretty quickly realised though that the only way to go was bunk beds and that storage was the key issue if we wanted the room to be at all practical.

Because our budget was so small we were restricted to this Ikea bed. Which was cheap but pretty depressing. So we painted it white and hung bed curtains made from the Cath Kidston fabric that was previously their bedroom curtains.

The bed curtain has dual purpose. As well as prettifying the bed it also helps block out the light, so that Lily isn't woken too early by the summer sun as well as making the whole bed thing a bit more fun for her.

I decided straight off to just run riot with the floral theme. There was never going to be any pretending that this room was anything but a girly girls room, so I figured that I might as well embrace it. Big time.

 

So when we bought a huge Ikea wardrobe carcass to store all the toys in I decided to continue the crazy floral theme. First we cut our own doors out of MDF, because I wanted to stop it from being a solid wall of doors and have two open shelves so that the girls could have their dolls house in particular out on display. Then I papered the doors with a couple of different wallpapers and patchworked the open shelves. It's not quite finished yet, but it's pretty much turned out how I hoped it would. And it's a godsend when it comes to storing all of their toys!

The room still has their all important reading corner, but we had to get rid of their art table. As much as I loved how it looked, we've found that they both prefer drawing and painting downstairs on the kitchen table and that with Lily getting so big it was too much of a squeeze for both of them to work at. So instead they have some more practical art supplies storage and a wall full of prints.

 

I'm pretty pleased that we've managed to make the room pretty and practical, as well as seemingly creating a whole ton of extra floor space. With the combination of bunk beds and the toy cupboard, the majority of the floor space is now freed up so that the girls can get out train sets and jigsaws or dance around (or do cartwheels, as was the case tonight!) easily and happily.

And I really love the playmobil shelf! We they have so much fun with it!

So the room has definitely changed, but for the better I think, because it now works for us all. We can keep it tidy and the girls can mess it up. The perfect partnership!