Nesting for Willow's Sake

Part One: Willow's Art Cabinet

This little cupboard used to have all of our junk in it. And we sort of threw Willow's coloring books in there too. The only problem was that ever since she could open this cabinet, she has been emptying it of all the contents. Spent way too much time on daily basis returning all our junk into the cupboard. As the months went by, things got more and more disorganized/ruined/crazy. 

The last straw was when I saw Willow playing with all the spare apartment keys we kept in the cupboard. She would try to open the front door with a key--but since it doesn't work that way--she moved on to the power outlets. Instant panic. For those of you that don't know, I shocked myself horribly as a toddler by sticking a key into an outlet. So, as soon as I took the keys away from Willow, I started finding new homes for all our junk cabinet items.

And made it into Willow's cabinet instead. There's a bit more stuff in there now, since we inherited some more coloring books, notebooks and crayons last week.

Part Two: Willow's Big Girl Bedroom 

The saga of the guest room. It seems like everything we try to do to this room...sort of...goes wrong. 

First Problem: The paint. We painted this room fairly quickly. In a few hours. But in a few sections, the paint refuses to adhere. It peels off in huge patches and we can't figure out how to fix it. We've tried a few times, and it continues to peel. 

Eventually Willow's toy chest will be in the corner, instead of this shelving unit. 

Second problem: The bunk bed. It took a week to set up because the wrong pieces were in the box. This has happened to us once before with IKEA. We had to wait a week for IKEA to deliver the correct pieces.

Still have to hang a banner on this wall and mount a mirror. The chair will not normally be there either. 

Eventually, I want to make this a reading nook for Willow 

Eventually, these draws in the nightstand will be filled with Willow's stuff. 

I bought new black fabric and had the tailor sew black-out curtains for both of the children's bedrooms. When the blackout curtains are closed, hardly any sunlight/streetlight comes into the room. Which is great, since the sun rises around 4am in the summer. 

You can see the paint peeling off under this shelf. 

Where does the sidewalk end? I'm not sure, but we didn't find it on the Great Wall.

Isn't this a cute purse? The "J" stands for "Julie". Not "Johnson". Yes...this was my purse as a 16 or 17 year old. I paid big bucks for it at Marshall Fields, and now Willow plays with it. Life is ironic.

Eventually, this will be her dress-up corner. We'll hang a mirror to cover up the peeling wall, and put all her dress up pieces in a basket or hanging from these low hooks. 

Anyway....this is just a little bit that's been going on in our home. I didn't take pictures of all the gross, disgusting things I've been scrubbing and cleaning, and scrubbing and vacuuming, and disinfecting. Because those are just disgusting. It is shocking how dirty the surfaces of our apartment get....just from the AIR!!!!