Ready For Some Action

Before her morning coffee last Saturday, Pleasure hopped in her van, drove to my house, parked out front and skipped up the sidewalk.  In her usual cheerful manner she hugged me hello and we began loading furniture, fixtures, and fun things into the back of her van for our first playroom design installation.

After a week's worth of inhaling over spray, burning my fingers on hot glue, tearing apart disappointing projects and singing the alphabet song 247 times, I was eager to see a pile of projects actually become a real room.

When we first talked with our client about possibly turning her dining room into a playroom I did not think she going to hire us for the job.  So I didn't measure her dining room or take any before pictures.  When she finally did give us the go ahead, Pleasure and I had to go by memory and intuition.



The day of the install we could immediately see that we had lucked out in choosing smaller furniture and a large art display.  One by one Pleasure began placing letters of the alphabet on the wall. 

   

I stood in the doorway and directed her with, "jigg it a bit over to the right.  now rotate it left... no, no too high, lower."  Miss Boo watched from her chair redirecting with, "oooh."  "burp." and "raspberry."


Now I am going to back track a bit....

 

A picture of our twenty dollar second hand furniture find before it was painted.

After a couple of coats of Kyrlon Glossy Blue spray paint.

 
After a few swipes of green to accent the details and color the original hardware.

And to wrap it all up, I wrapped the inside with a fun striped contact paper in our chosen accent colors.

Pleasure donated a shelf that was not being used in her home.  It had once been hot pink, until I spray painted it pumpkin orange.  We bought the picnic basket and small bushel baskets at a garage sale for a couple of dollars.  The large blocks on the top of the shelf were once........

..the old wooden canisters you see here.  I painted them white, stenciled on different letters and then washed them with a water base stain.

Here's a shot of the shelf in the playroom, loaded with toys.  The canisters turned blocks provide storage for legos, crayons and small cars.

Pleasure and I also scored a round wooden accent table for eight dollars.  He-man cut down the legs and constructed stools out of lumber he had lying around his garage.  I guess you could say that was our most profitable garage sale find of the day!








 
I painted a peace sign on the top and stripes on the stools in the accent colors of our design.

With Pleasure's steady hand, a few revived letters we'd picked up at garage sales, a gleaning of Hobby Lobby's 50% off aisle, he-man's handy work and some of our own creations the large alphabet wall spelled out a fun place to play.

We moved toys from the living room to the playroom where every nook and cranny became filled.  It was a good thing we incorporated storage in the green wicker cubes (also spray painted), the blue cabinet, the picnic basket and the bushel buckets.  Not only did the room look fun it served our client's need.

Yup, even the house cat seemed pleased. 


I hope your day spells out fun.  I hope you have a need fulfilled.  I hope your hands serve you, your heart leads you and your passion pulls you deeper and deeper into joy.