Eclectic Farmhouse Playroom Reveal & ORC Week 6
A boring and cluttered playroom gets a modern eclectic farmhouse makeover on a budget with DIY projects, smart storage solutions, and inexpensive finds.
Some days I’m just a teensy bit jealous of my 4 year-old. The girl can wear a princess dress and tiara in public, take a nap whenever she feels like it, and the hardest vote she ever has to make is whether to choose a cookie or brownie for dessert.
(But then I remember I can have a glass of wine, eat sushi, and ride roller coasters and suddenly being a grown-up feels pretty awesome.)
One thing Robert, Olivia, and I all can enjoy together though is our newly finished PLAYROOM!
Not that playroom.
THIS playroom!
It is officially reveal day after this 6 week long One Room Challenge, and I honestly cannot believe how quickly we were able to pull this one off. To be fair, we’ve had a lot of practice with the other ten rooms in our house.
You can see our entire ORC journey from the beginning in our previous weeks here:
Week 1 | Week 2 | Week 3 | Week 4 | Week 5
(I’ve written up a full source list with paint colors, links, and our budget breakdown at the bottom of this post too.)
Here is what this space looked like before: (Affiliate links are provided below. For more info, see my full disclosure here.)
Womp womp.
And after!
Seriously, how did we live with all of this toy clutter everywhere? …and a random office chair.
This space is so functional, and we feel happier and more clear-headed now that the junky mess is gone.
Okay, one more for good measure and then I’ll dive into the details, I pinky promise.
BOOM.
From the very beginning when we first moved into this house, I knew that one day I wanted to install clean white built-in shelves in this room with a place to hang out and relax as a family.
But I also love the rustic farmhouse look, so I wanted to figure out a way to marry the two.
It wasn’t until this wood wall idea from Shades of Blue Interiors came along that the light bulb moment happened.
We ended up using these tongue and groove rustic style boards from Lowe’s after our cheap fence repurposing idea fell through. It was a bit of a blow to the budget, but I’m so glad we don’t have to worry about mold and dry rot being nailed up on our wall.
I ended up hanging this cut-out “adventure” sign above the TV and it’s so stinkin’ perfect!
For some easily accessible toy storage, I found these wooden crates on sale for less than $10 each, spray painted them with Rustoleum Winter Gray, and stenciled on the numbers. Easy! And cheaper than a lot of the other crate/basket storage options out there.
The most expensive project in the room by far were these IKEA hack built-in shelves, but they were absolutely worth it. Having the doors on the lower half have been great for hiding toys and board games, and they’re still easy access for Olivia whenever she wants to dig them out.
It was easy to decorate the shelves since I mostly used toys she already had. I stored some of her building blocks and musical instruments in these hocking jars that I picked up at Walmart. I searched high and low for large plastic or acrylic jars with no luck, but Robert and I just help dump out those toys whenever she wants to play with them.
I made a few cork board picture frames where we can easily display her artwork whenever she brings it home from preschool. And I found this cute vintage cage fan on Ebay for $8!
For this half wall, I knew it would be a great spot to install a pair of desks, one for Olivia and one for me, so I can blog or craft while she colors in her coloring books or works on her reading/writing skills.
I ended up finding a square kitchen table on Craigslist that we cut in half and mounted directly onto the wall. Ha! I’m still looking around for other pieces of furniture I could cut in half that would be equally as fabulous.
A very sweet friend sent me this “S” from an old Starbucks sign. Yay for dumpster diving! The rest of the desk decor were just things I already had around the house.
For the window side of the room, I made these pom pom curtains as Anthropologie / Pottery Barn knock-offs using IKEA sheers.
And I hung them up on this galvanized pipe looking curtain rod I found at Target.
I gave Olivia’s existing play table on this side of the room a quick makeover too.
After a lot of debating, Robert and I decided the cheapest, most practical solution for our old tan couch was actually to sell it and replace it with a white IKEA Ektorp. We made $200 from the old couch, so it covered a big chunk of the cost for a new one. (You’d think IKEA sponsored this room. We just went crazy all over the place in here.)
So now if Olivia ever gets this slipcover dirty, I can toss it in the wash with some bleach and it’ll be all fresh and clean. (I hope… we’ll find out.)
Robert and I have made several of these engineer print / wood framed type signs before, but this time I used colored engineer prints and typed up the wording on Picmonkey to create these oversized storybook pages. Is there a limit on how many times I can say “cute” in this post? I can’t even stand it.
I always have to get sappy and sentimental somewhere in every room we makeover; this project was definitely as sappy as it gets.
I hung up this felted pom pom garland for some whimsy and they’ve made this room feel very Dr. Seuss-ish.
Back when I was planning this room, I found all of these sofa pillows on sale at Target and they inspired the whole color scheme. I tried not to get too girly with pinks and purples in here, so blue and yellow seemed safe but still fun.
After debating foreverrrrrr on the right rug, this one fit in beautifully and it’s suuuuuper duper soft. I’m ready to wrap myself up in this thing like a blanket burrito. The three of us have loved sprawling out on it to have block building competitions and board game nights.
We finally replaced our plain ol’ builder grade light fixture with this mint one from Hunter Fan. Doesn’t it scream “playroom” to you? I love that it’s modern but still has a vintage vibe.
So now the big crazy breakdown! We ran into a couple of snafus with the wood wall and sofa slipcover plan from the beginning, so we ended up having to spend about $450 more than we originally planned. Ack!
But with furnishing this room with budget DIY projects and shopping as many sales as I could, we did our best to make this room as inexpensive as possible for our long wish list.
SOURCES AND BUDGET BREAKDOWN:
- Paint – Behr Seagull Gray – $62.54
- Bookcase built-ins – $899.62
- Wooden plank wall – $117
- Wall-mounted desks & chairs – $100
- White slipcovered sofa – $299 (After selling our old sofa for $200.)
- Striped cotton rug – $287.99 (On sale at 20% off)
- Mint ceiling fan – $219
- DIY window trim – $80.69
- Pom pom curtains – $53.36
- DIY storybook page art – $68.82 (Tutorial coming soon)
- Pom pom garland – $27.27 (3 strands bought at a 30% off sale)
- Adventure cut-out sign – $49.99
- Wooden crates (spray painted with Rustoleum Winter Gray) – $59.94 (6 bought on sale)
- Hocking jars – $45.84 for all 4
- Barn wood frames – $47.96 for all 4
- Galvanized bins – $29.88 for all 4
- Yellow stripe pillow – $13.99 (on sale)
- Aqua stripe pillow – $13.99 (on sale)
- Teal print pillow – $13.99 (on sale)
- Gray “smile” pillow – $11.89 (on sale)
- Yellow geometric pillow – $13.99 (on sale)
- Made over play table – $21
- Metal pipe curtain rod – $32.99
- Yellow cage fan – $8 (on Ebay)
TOTAL: $2,578.74
Gulp. Well, that escalated quickly.
This is officially the last large room in our entire house besides our laundry room and closets. I guess 2017 is going to be the year of massive organization.
Well actually, not if this little tornado has anything to do with it.
It is absolutely amazing to me how much having this room complete has changed our family for the better. Before this, we would often park ourselves in front of the TV and watch Netflix after dinner for a couple hours before bed.
Now, we’ve been taking time in the evenings completely unplugged to play in here together as a family because it’s a space we can actually enjoy. And that makes all of the hard work worth it.
I have no idea what you’d really call this style in this room. Eclectic? Farmhouse? Modern? I was hoping for a little Joanna Gaines meets Emily Henderson kind of vibe. All I know is I big puffy heart love it! And that’s what matters more than anything, right? Fill your home with what makes you and yours happy. This is definitely our happiest space yet.
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