apartment therapy changing the world, one room at a time

Yea!!! It's nice seeing a room being shared - my brother and I shared a room for a long time, and I think it's one of the reasons we're still so close. LOVE the bed.

fabulous room! love the bureau, the color of the bed, the kid art! a quick question -- my three and six-yr-olds also share a room and i've been pondering the big dollhouse purchase. yours is the Plan dollhouse, right? do your kids really use it? enough to warrant the big floor-space expenditure in a small room/apartment? (well, ok, another question if you're feeling patient: what's the best bedding for bunk beds? we just got ours! what's easiest to deal with -- i've heard duvet with no top sheet...?) thanks so much, and love the room.

Ok. I'm an only child, so I have NO IDEA about this sort of thing. How long is it ok to have a brother and sister share a room? (We have one boy and are working on #2. I'd really like for them to share a room.... but I don't know how that works with a boy and a girl...)

Joy and Snarly,
Thank you so much for your kind words!
In regards to your questions Snarly:
The dollhouse goes through phases of use. Sometimes I don't see them play with it for a week or more but then other times I will walk in on them playing with it for hours on end. If you are short on space you may want to think about getting a wooden child's table, velcro, and fabric. Put velcro on three sides of the table and then make panels of fabric with velcro on the top and then when the kids want to they can put up the "walls" and use it as a dollhouse but when not in use they still have a table to do art work on.
I am a complete easy bedding kind of gal. We use the fitted sheet with duvet on all of our beds. I can't even imagine trying to put a top sheet on the top bunk!
Hope that helps. Thanks again, you guys made my day!

hmmm...having trouble linking to the blog for more pics. but the pics on the slideshow look even better than the photos here. the colors are brighter and you can see detail better, of course. love the different layers of the room, like it came together organically, as the kids and their tastes have grown. love the art on the walls and vibrant colors in all that's in the room.

Hi Melissa and R8ermom,
Melissa - my husband and I are both only children as well so we also wonder about sharing a room with your sibling. My kids are 6 and 3 and so far neither seems to mind. I worried my daughter would start to care when she went over to friends homes and they had their own rooms but it seems more often the kids are jealous of her having a bunk bed. So, go figure. We are just going to go with it until they are ready for a change.

R8ermom - Yeah the link doesn't seem to work. If you click on my name ssstaton it takes you to my profile and the link on that page will take you to the site, or you can just type in thenoisyvillage.com and that will take you right there.

What a great room! You've re-validated my preference for no rugs in kids' rooms -- it's so hard to build a decent train track on carpeting. And hey, we have those same bunkbeds in my toddler's room! I'd never thought of painting them -- fantastic idea (which I might steal).

Room-sharing is wonderful. As soon as baby #2 is sleeping through the night (er, after he's born, that is), he's going to be sharing his big brother's room. (And coincidentally, yay! I get my office back!)

Love, love, LOVE the room!

It's adorable, totally child friendly (I dig how some of the art is hung at kid-level), cool and yet livable.

And the painted IKEA beds? Brilliant.

thanks so much for the answers, shannon! you really did a fabulous job with the room. we see tons of snazzy baby rooms, but it's much rarer to see children's rooms with both style and livability/playability (not a word but you know what i mean).