Eleanor’s Big Girl Bedroom: Episode #1

With an extra addition to our family this Winter, our little snug farmhouse is getting quite cosy! Operation carport-room-overhaul-into-sewing-room-and-home-office was all to make room for another bedroom available in this house, to become Eleanor’s big girl room.

The room is the smallest of our three bedrooms, basically why it has always been allocated as an office/sewing room, but it’s also the warmest as it’s west facing (Eleanor’s current room/the baby’s nursery is south facing and quite cold, nothing a heater in there at night doesn’t fix though). It has always been my intention that Eleanor would eventually graduate to this room, as we’d had the sewing room plans for many years now, and the baby’s nursery (still very gender neutral from when I decorated it pregnant with Eleanor) would remain basically the same. The nursery room is a little bit bigger and could possibly be a shared bedroom in the future, freeing up the third smaller room to still have a spare bedroom. But let’s not get ahead of ourselves…

Once all the stuff was moved out of our former office/sewing room and into the new space, we were left with a blank canvas to work with. We ripped off the ‘picture rail’ first, which is actually just squared plaster and not picture rail at all? As in our bedroom we will be replacing with proper bullnose picture rail (that stuff is stupidly expensive for what it is?!) In our bedroom renovation we kept the existing cornice, as it is no longer available to be sourced, and Matt did a stellar job replacing and re-building salvaged bits around the wardrobe…but it was a very tedious and labourious task, one which he didn’t fancy repeating. So new cornice was decided upon (who knew the hundreds or cornice you can get?!) and has been ordered. Down with the old, in with the new!

As all old farmhouses of this era, no wardrobes. Sigh. So our first task was to give this room a similar built in wardrobe to what we built last year in our bedroom. Storage! For stuff! I’m very much hoping Eleanor’s clothes/toys/stuff won’t take up all this space (surely?!) and I can utilise the wardrobe for bedding, baby paraphernalia, photo albums, rarely worn clothes, Christmas decorations – all of the things!

The wall behind the door is about two-third’s the size than in our bedroom, and with the benefit of one custom built wardrobe under his belt, Matt fairly quickly and easily knocked together a melamine framework for the wardrobe. Designing the wardrobe was also a whole lot easier second time around, we learnt from mistakes made with our one and had a fair idea of what we needed, what would work and set to work more efficiently (getting the melamine cut at Bunnings also saved us a heap of time).

With the framework done, it has been pushed against the wall into place, walls built around it and plasterboard on. We’re hoping to do the same sliding doors we have on our wardrobe (once we source some…) so had to make the opening just wide enough for two doors, hence the little nib wall. I put hanging space on this side of the wardrobe to shove things like Winter coats or Matt’s suits, things we don’t need regular access to. The other side will have a lot of wire baskets on runners (also from Bunnings), I wanted something that was easy for Eleanor to access her own clothes and foster some independence in putting her clothes away/getting dressed (maybe?! Wishful thinking?!) The top section will be the same as our wardrobe, to the ceiling to utilise all that high space with swinging cupboard doors. The other compartments I’m envisaging baskets for shoes/toys/bedding etc.

Builder Matt is currently at the thrilling stage of plastering and stopping up – his favourite! (Read: not his favourite). Actually, painting probably comes last in the favourite stakes. On the opposite wall he has replaced a sheet of plasterboard which was looking well past it – it was also right where Eleanor’s head will be for sleeping and we thought it might have a bit of a damp issue so best to replace. Of course now Matt lamenting the fact he didn’t just replace the whole room’s plasterboard. This would enable him to put insulation in and make the room completely new, as it stands currently the old plasterboard isn’t in the best shape, but I don’t mind! Perfectionist clearly not happy though.

And so…we continue to live in a building site. The whole house has a fine mist of white plaster dust, just lovely. And I’ve become some sort of nesting monster and need the room finished of course! Patience, grasshopper. We’re much more behind schedule for Eleanor’s big girl room than I wanted to be, ideally ‘they’ say not to introduce big changes within a few months either side of a new baby’s arrival. But…as always, we’ll just muddle through, and hopefully our placid little blossom will love her new space just as much as she’ll love her new brother or sister! Maybe?! Just say yes.