Jack and Ella's room - the, um, reveal?

Finally, the moment you've been waiting for!  Here, for your viewing pleasure, are the pictures of the new room.  And a very wordy explanation for everything.

We bought this bunkbed last weekend from a man who made it for his kids who are now my age.  This bed is rock solid.  It is held together by only eight bolts and has three drawers underneath that span the whole width of the bed.  It's pretty rustic, but that's great because it's long term home is with two boys.

I had arranged all the furniture in my head before we brought it home.  I had even measured it out. 

My measurements were wrong.  My head placed things badly.

The problem is that the bed fits nowhere easily.  It's the same size as Ella's last bed, but because of the height, there is no way not to lose a window.  It made me very sad to realize this, but we really did look into all of our options.  To make matters aesthetically worse, we put a very large dresser of a completely different style right next to the bed. 

Why, you ask?  I mean, I'm all about ecclectic design, but these just don't mesh.  Well, because Jack is still learning to stay in bed, we don't want temptation {meaning toys or books} too close, and that left us with only this arrangement option, but it means that two huge pieces of furniture are taking over the room.  I feel like the room almost tips in that direction.

And this is my pictoral confession of what this room looked like for a few days.

A mess of stacks and bundles and piles.  No wonder it felt claustrophobic in here!

Still, the kids love sharing the room.

As of today, it looks like this.  Nothing more has been checked off the design to-do list, but at least it's as neat and organized as it can be for the moment.

None of Jack's toys are in here yet, though.

We moved the play kitchen over and put the table with it {not that the table is currently usable because of all the books} for a "domestic zone."

I also found two plastic crates in a neighbor's garbage {no, I'm not above going through trash} and brought them home and cleaned them up for shoe storage.

So, where to we go from here?  Well, things are hopefully looking up.  Handsome Hero is working on a plan to build shelving on either side of the closet.  That would allow for all the kids' toys to be in here, with the higher shelving storing Ella's paper dolls and other delicate things that she really doesn't need to be sharing with her two-year-old brother.

So there you have it.  A room in progress.  I'm glad to have taken the plunge, but I'm looking forward to being able to say that it is complete.