Tuesday, January 23

DIY Mountain Climbing Rock Wall (in the boys' room)

Our big gift for our boys this Christmas was in indoor mountain climbing rock wall, right in their own bedroom. It's nothing too big or elaborate, but boy are they having fun with it. They call it "the playground" and keep saying "I can't believe we have a playground in our room!"


Our main goals were to keep it simple, fun and affordable. Without building ourselves into something too big that would be awful to un-do later (who knows how we'll need this space as they grow!). I knew they would love a rock wall and monkey bars, but we also thought about different forts, bunk beds, and even bridges. In the end decided on a super simple rockwall/monkey bar combo. It doesn't take up too much space, and if we ever need to take it down it won't be a big deal. And bonus - it was by far the cheapest of our ideas.


We also added a set of gymnast rings.


And a swing.


We have a lot of winter energy to burn around here.


I love how something as simple as painting a forest mural on the wall added so much fun an interest to the space, without taking up any room! You can see how we did it here (it's easier than you might think!).


And the top of the climbing wall is cut to look like mountain peaks - which is a perfect accent to their forest wall!


There is a full-size mattress underneath for a soft landing. Most nights, all three of them end up piled-up down there to sleep. It's like camping in a forest.


Tuesday, January 9

DIY Forest Mural (great for a boy's room!)

I've spent most of my adult life in the no-murals-ever camp. I didn't want anything too themed because I knew I'd get tired of it and want to change it, so what's the point? But then... we started collecting all these little boys and one day I was like "THEY WOULD LOVE A CAMPING ROOM." Then it took me all of five minutes longer to come up with a forest wall mural and throw my mural-morals to the wind. And I totally l.o.v.e. it.


If you follow me on instagram, you've probably seen a few peeks of the surprise we put in the boys room for Christmas. Their camping theme room (or maybe more of a wilderness theme, there aren't actually any tents) is complete with a mountain peak climbing wall, monkey bars, and swings. A real winter adventure zone for all these little fellas! We'll be sharing the plans for all that soon, but today we're staring with how we painted the mural wall (which is easier than you might think).


Our first step was painting that wall. Their room is the same blue-ish gray that it was when we bought the house (we've barely touched the upstairs at all), and I knew it needed to be lighter for our forest wall to pop.

You can see the original color to the left of the door.

Friday, January 5

The New Year Post ~ 2018

New post because it's a new year. So it's time to reflect on the past year and plan for the future, right? Just fyi, the entire next year of your life depends on this one moment. No pressure.

JK, guys. If you remember my resolution post from last year (I don't.) you can be assured that this moment is just that. A moment. Not so different from most others. And in this moment I find myself doing more reflecting than planning. Thinking of things past and things to come. Wondering, worrying, and feeling hopeful all at the same time. But I'm taking it easy on the planning, because it hasn't been so fruitful in the past.



Last year I made myself a nice little overwhelming list of resolutions. With an extra serving of self-guilt on the side. Need a refresher? (I did!) You can read it all here. And I'm here in 2018 to tell you - I did none of them. NONE. Remember that cleaning list I printed? I did it for one day. Seriously. ONE DAY. It was exhausting. But that list is still hanging on my fridge like I'll wake up one morning and give it another try. Never mind that I haven't in a whole year. We did, however, manage to play outside a ton, but it had nothing to do with me remembering that resolution (because I totally didn't until I looked at it today) and everything to do with having three small boys and please get us out of this house. 

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