Unlike Cameron's new bedroom, where we were basically starting from scratch, Kane had most of his furniture already locked down. When you're 18 months old and get kicked out of your crib by an arriving sibling, and your mom and dad refuse to buy a toddler bed, you get hooked up with the furniture they tell you you'll take to college (I'm only partly kidding). But I still wanted Kane to be excited about moving and getting a new room. He has a strong personality and a real love for adventure, collecting, travel, and the color green. And he builds with legos for HOURS (seriously, HOURS) at a time while he listens to a variety of audiobooks. So that's where I started.
I picked out The Land of Nod's Honors Kids Sheet Set, which covers a variety of adventurous activities Kane loves and gave me several colors of green to work into the room. I went with a bold-striped duvet cover in kelly green (his absolute favorite shade of the color). He kept his previous bed (CB2 no longer makes it, but here's a similar one) and inherited a great storage ottoman from our old home, which happened to work perfectly with his bed and holds all our boardgames. Just like Cam, Kane's "sailboat blankie" quilt my mom made is his go-to blanket at night and I liked that the blue of the duvet cover worked that in as well. We hung a Nod felt garland above to help delineate the space and pick up the colors and theme from the sheets.
Kane is notorious for leaving books strewn about his bed and floor which drives me insane. So I decided that the majority of books would stay on his previous bookshelf (from Nod's Oak Park Elementary collection -- my home town!! -- and which we've had since Kane was a baby) and we grouped them by color so he could easily re-shelve them. But the handful of most-read books we put right next to his bed on a rolling cart with a great clip-on reading light. That way we're never searching for our current read (and the tooth fairy can always find his tooth holder). We also added a bright green rug to the foot of his bed to help anchor it in the room -- he picked it out himself!
We designed the main play area in Kane's room around a coveted lego table. Using Nod's awesomely bold rug, we floated the table right in front of his patio doors (my friend Suzanne's idea -- she said she could picture him sitting at the table building for hours and watching out the windows and was totally right!). I used a tabletop we already owned and added adjustable legs so that we can raise the table as he grows. Nod's Play Chairs work perfectly and add some more green to the space.
Kane spent a lot of time designing the layout of building bases for the table, but when it came down to it, he just couldn't commit. He wanted to be able to change the configuration depending on what he was building. So instead of attaching the bases to the tabletop as I planned, Kane just picked out the number of each base color he wanted and moves them around depending on his building plans. We left half of the table with a flat work surface so he can place his lego bins right on top (we also color-coordinated these great stackable containers with the lego pieces for easy cleanup because the only thing I hate more than books on the floor is stepping on legos left on the floor!). It's been a great system!
Flanking each side of the lego play table is more toy storage (Kane needed a lot of storage!). Both of these bookshelves came from our previous home and we've used Nod's cube bins on them for years and years (they've held up well!). And Kane uses the tops to display some of his variation collections, including his growing number of mini-figures and a random assortment of rocks, crystals, and minerals set out in a vintage letterpress drawer tray I bought at one of our local flea markets (similar to this, but I didn't pay anywhere near that!).
As I mentioned, Kane loves to travel and has started a great collection of items from around the world (his dad also travels internationally a lot, so many of these were brought back to him from various trips). We needed a good place to display them and Nod's Acrylic Bookshelf was a great way to do that without adding another piece of heavy furniture to the mix. It also helps transition from the lego space to his dresser (another existing Oak Park Elementary piece) where he has more of his travel goods displayed. We just added a scratch-off map of the world over his dresser so that Kane can mark off all of the places he visits as he grows up.
Kane loves his room and I feel like I accomplished a great space that really speaks to his personality. Another giant thanks to The Land of Nod for helping us make Kane a great room and my friend Suzanne for helping me design the layout (especially floating that lego table)!
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