Then and Now: Nursery

The third bedroom is at the front of the house, and is the smallest.  Handily, it's not as small as the third bedroom we had in our Cardiff house.

Though we did paint them both almost the same color.  (This one is the Johnstone's color match to Next's Spa Retreat.)  Yup, that's mattress up against the wall.  Because we haven't figured out what we're doing with the girls' bedrooms yet.  We have a twin mattress, but no frame.  So sometimes it goes on the floor for someone to sleep on or just for rough housing.

The way the stairs are configured means that there is this funny box built into the room.  (The pitch of the head height for the stairs cuts into the floor of the bedroom.  Does that make sense?  Basically the box stays.)

We have some vague ideas about what to do with the box (like turning it into a seating area with built-in storage.)  But nothing concrete.  I took off the, uh, interesting paper that was covering the top of the box.  And as if there wasn't enough going on, I decided to use a heat gun to strip the paint, instead of painting.  The wood underneath was in decent condition.

So, we sanded and varnished and then put some Ikea bookshelves on top for clothes storage.  

It's not fancy, but it works for now.  And I think I better secure the bookshelves because our 'baby' is walking and is a climber.

I  know there were some redeeming things about this room, but looking at the picture below I can't remember what they were.  Oh yes, one being that this room was larger than the small room from our Cardiff house.  But I already mentioned that.  The floorboards were in great condition.  The ceiling was covered in polystyrene tiles, but they were easily removed.

Another redeeming thing is the window.  It's fairly tall and lets in a lot of light.

I think this room probably belonged to the daughter of the former owners, since there was a school bag and a plaque with her name on the back of the door.  (From what I gather, the house was only vacant for a year, but had been left in a state of disrepair for quiet a while before that.  The daughter probably left school 30 years ago, the school bag was leather and kind of amazing.)

The name plaque came down, but now there's a hook in its place.  Just in case we need it.  (Did I mention how long it has taken to getting around to taking the 'now' pictures?  Especially for this room.  Either the baby is sleeping, so no photos.  Or she's awake and her sister is awake, and they're both running around or wanting to be held.  So you get random glimpses of the girls.  You're welcome.)