the aqua shelf solution

With all these crazy random bedroom colors swimming around in the nooks and crannies of my brain Friday afternoon, I took Punkin and Dude up to their bedroom to "talk". I was on a gentle mission. How could we move some of the yellow out? Or maybe just move it somewhere less conspicuous? I really try to be sensitive to their feelings. Sometimes, I blow it in a major way. But, I do try to consider things from their perspective... to not make comments that imply their opinions are inferior or their preferences illegitimate. So, we really did talk about the room they wanted. Not just what I wanted them to want. You mamas know the inner battle, here.

Shocker...

They didn't want to part with any of the yellow.

What to do, what to do?

So, I looked at all their treasured scraps of paper and LEGO Star Wars guys cut out of instruction booklets, and I tried. I worked up all the visualizing super power I could work up. And then, a thought struck me. I suggested taping most of the construction paper stuff to the back of their bedroom door instead of their bunkbed walls. (So they could keep it but I could kind of hide it - guilty as charged).

Tape?! they exclaimed. The fancy blue tape?! Now?! On the DOOR?!



They couldn't get at it fast enough. There was a itty bitty paper scrap mass exodus. Praise God.



You only see that stuff now when the door is closed. When it's open... nada. Why didn't I think of that before? And wonder of wonders, I actually liked the way the door looked with all their treasures taped up. Maybe it's the black? At any rate, win-win!



Okay... yellow reduction - check. (Really the yellow reduction happened over the course of the weekend, not in one fell swoop like the photos make it appear... I had to help Dude with a lot of taping). Next up, work in the pink and figure out how to make friends with the aqua shelves. Punkin and I chatted a bit about "decorations" for the shelves. I was thinking maybe I could make a little, girly-girl white bunting or something to go across them... mute the color a bit. We made elaborate plans for a paper daisy chain... she was very detailed. And then, out of nowhere, I said, "What would you think of a little curtain over the shelves?"

What would she think?

Funner than fun is fun! That's what! She was giddy. And then she said something that just tore at my Mama Heart. She said, "That would be perfect, because then you would really be able to tell that a girl sleeps there."

Ugh.

Pink, Punkin. You get pink. I'm on it.

And, I actually was on it. I went to JoAnne's that very evening. She and I had devised a plan, and I got to work. It was a plan designed to work double-duty. It would add a little pink and solve the aqua dilemma.

One Mama Night...



... and one happy girlie (with a bad cold).



Punkin sleeps here.





Now, the aqua dot is pretty much eliminated, the yellow is reduced, and the pink is added in just a bit.



I know these changes are not huge. But, I feel like the tide has turned. This bedroom had been steadily moving more toward the chaotic end of matters, but this weekend's tweaks seem to have restored some balance.

Now, to keep them away from the construction paper.

Ha. Just kidding.