The bunk bed.

With a new occupant for the nursery on the way, we had to figure out a way to fit Elsa into Amelia's room. I absolutely love organizing spaces, and especially small spaces. Which is good since we will most likely be living in this house for the rest of our lives.

The best solution was a bunk bed. I didn't want to lose any floor space, and twin bunk beds were going to take up a lot of room. There is a little nook in the room that is perfect for a bed, but it's too small for a twin size. Enter Ben. He thought about building toddler bunk beds, but then came up with the idea to modify an IKEA twin size bunk bed. He cut it down to the size of an IKEA toddler bed, which is longer than a regular toddler bed, and a little wider (and should fit the girls for a long time). And it happens to fit perfectly in our nook.

Now, do not think this was an easy task. He had to cut, with perfection, over 40 boards and drill new holes to make the bed both shorter and narrower. He worked on it for 12 hours straight (and this was after doing a 9-mile run in the morning...I get tired just thinking about it). We're still not sure if building it from scratch would have been easier or faster, but we're really happy with the results. The bed is perfect. Perhaps we'll paint it someday. Probably not.

Amelia is SO excited to have a bunk bed. She said "I hope I can sleep in a bunk bed the rest of my life!!" We're headed off on a 10-day trip to Utah soon and she keeps telling me how much she will miss her bunk bed. The girls have already built countless forts with it. We haven't had Elsa start sleeping in there yet, but we'll get to that in the next few months.



I figured out a new arrangement of furniture and with the bunk beds in the nook, we actually have MORE floor space than before. With a little reorganizing, dejunking, and the addition of two underbed drawers, we have plenty of space for Elsa's things. It's amazing what a little rearranging will do. After moving the "reading corner" to a new location, the girls have been spending so much time reading books together. And rediscovering a lot of books.





Simply rearranging didn't quite satisfy my design bug, so I've decided to redecorate the nursery. We don't need to since it's a gender neutral green and yellow, but we're ready for something new...