The Bear's Playroom Tour, Part 1

Hello Loyal Readers! Today we begin the Playroom Tour. I absolutely love this room and we spend quite a bit of time in here. It's so bright and full of fun :)

This is the view from the left back corner looking towards the door. From this
view, to the right of the door is the closet and to the left, just barely in frame
is the homemade kitchen. I'll break it down and give you some details.

This is looking into the room through
the Ikea Vitaminer curtain. It's a plastic
rainbow of fun to run through :)

Moving inside the room, hanging on the door is the
beautiful blanket The Bear's cousin made for her for
Christmas that you may remember used to be hanging
on her bedroom door until I changed it to the tutu and
butterfly wings from her great aunt. The wand above
the blanket is from that same butterfly fairy set.

Moving into the room a bit we come to the Ikea MÅLA
easel. Great Grammie & Grampie got one for each of the
three granddaughters for Christmas last year and it has
been a huge hit in our house. Kbear LOVES it. She uses
it everyday. I have it set up backward with the paper roll
hanging down over the dry erase side because if she
accidentally gets paint on that side it's easy to clean up
plus I can keep the chalkboard side out for everyday
drawing. Above that is a rotating art gallery. I saw the
idea to use trouser hangers as art hangers on the blog site
Smile and Wave. I thought it was so cute and I found this
set of 6 for $3.99 on clearance at Bed, Bath and Beyond so
you can't beat that.

Finally, moving all of the way to the left is the kitchen.
It's AWESOME! I absolutely love this thing. My dad,
the hubs and I all made this for K for Christmas. I found
the idea from the Ikea Hacker website and used the plans
from the original blog site called Mama Americana which
seems to be no longer in existence.

Here it is with the refrigerator open. We have tons of wonderful Melissa &
Doug wooden food given as gifts, two adorable crocheted cups of tea
(made by my SIL) and on the bottom is a cool wood bowl I found at our local
Goodwill for approximately 50 cents to hold the smaller fruit. In the oven is a
pizza. It's on a wire cooling rack that I still need to mount to replicate the racks
in a real oven. To the right is the microwave. I know it's gaudy but it was too
cool to pass up. It has a working timer that counts down, a light, a rotating turn-
table and a bell dings when the food is done. I think it's nicer than the one that
came in our apartment. Next to that is the toaster that matches the blender up top.

The stove top has two "on" burners (under the pot and pan) and two "off"
burners. The faucet really works thanks to a counter mounted soap dispenser
that I just fill with tap water. The sink is a stainless bowl we already had. The
bottom two drawers hold the utensils, plates, cups, pitchers, extra chopping
knives, cupcake sleeves, and a few extra pots and pieces of food.

I couldn't hold her back from playing any longer to
take more pictures! On the side was my Mom's
great idea. We had an extra long handle from the
fridge door (they come in two packs) so she suggested
mounting it on the side as a towel holder. Brilliant!

Lastly, above the kitchen are two pieces of
art from one of my favorite children's authors,
Holly Hobbie. She wrote and illustrated the
original Toot & Puddle books and I just adore
the soft watercolor charm of these two piggies.
I have 2 more hanging in K's bathroom. These
(& the 2 in the bathroom) were from 2 calendars
I had years ago. I wish I had known then that
she would retire and save the remainder of the
calendars for other pieces but such is life :( At
least I have my 4 favorites framed and hung.

So that's the first part of the playroom. I'm sorry it was a bit long but I wanted to be able to showcase the amazing kitchen. I'm SO happy to have it as something handmade for her by her Papa that she will be able to keep and pass down to her children someday. Plus she gets so much enjoyment out of it now and I know that as she ages and uses even more of her imagination it will get years of play to come. Stay tuned for Tour Parts 2 and 3 to come. Thanks for stopping by!