I’ve been working on the playroom on the third floor. We’ve all been feeling a little stir-crazy, waiting for spring to officially arrive (though we had a sneak-peek yesterday and today with temperatures in the fifties!), so it’s been great having a fun space inside the house setup for the kids. There are plenty of toys, plus a play kitchen on one side and an art station on the other. Lately, we’ve been going upstairs after breakfast to paint, work on arts and crafts, or color. Eleanor helps set everything up.
Why yes, we do always use a mug with a kitty and fireworks on it when we paint.
August likes to paint at the easel too, or use watercolors, but he wasn’t into it that day so he played with his cars while I helped Eleanor. After a while, he made some cupcakes in the play kitchen which we all agreed were the most delicious ever. They were made of eggs, chocolate and ketchup. Yum.
Eleanor painted a rainbow. For The Rainbow House, naturally.
I keep the tray of the easel lined with paper towels so that it doesn’t get too glopped over with paint, but I don’t stress about the kids being neat. They can do their thing, and then we clean up any errant paint spills and splatters when they’re done.
The paints are washable, so cleaning up is easy. I keep a bottle of Mrs. Meyer’s countertop spray in one of the art cubbies on the desk, and I try to enlist the kids’ help as often as I can. I spray, they wipe. I clean for real, they push a toy vacuum around. (You take the help you get, right?)
The light is so nice up there in the mornings, and the kids have such a good time. It’s one of our favorite places to be.
Mrs. Meyer’s is hosting a giveaway, and the Grand Prize Arts & Crafts winner will receive a custom-designed Craft Center, fully stocked with all of the art supplies and materials you need to enjoy fun, messy crafts in the comfort of your home. Once installed, Mrs. Meyer’s Clean Day will throw a party for your kids and up to thirty of their friends, hosted by Design Mom’s Gabrielle Blair.
Visit getmessycontest.com for more details, and to enter.
Comments
13 responses to “The Playroom Art Center”
I love Mrs. Meyers specifically the baby fragrance! Lemon Verbena and the Lavender are nice too but I can’t get enough of the baby one!
I haven’t used the baby one! Lemon Verbena is nice though. And basil, or rhubarb.
Could you tell me where the table came from that’s featured in the last photo? My kids have outgrown the one we have in our playroom, but I still need something that doesn’t take up much space. That one looks perfect!
It’s a tabletop and legs from IKEA. I bought them years ago to use in my shop’s booth at the National Stationery Show because they could be packed in a crate and shipped to NYC and back easily. They don’t sell those legs anymore, but they still have the same size tabletop (2’x4′), and lots of other options for the base.
Are those silver chairs in the last picture the ones from target?
They’re either from Industry West or Hayneedle (they’ve all been mixed with my dining room chairs and I can’t tell which is which anymore!).
I love that you let your kids do their own thing, messes being part of the territory. You can’t contain that kind of creativity. But good idea on the paper towel linings. :]
Ha! Yep, the lining has been a really good idea. ;)
Awww, so cute! Eleanor’s rainbow is better than I could pull off, BTW. She’s clearly her mother’s daughter.
I love Mrs. Meyers too—I have their air freshener over my toilet in the guest bathroom I promised you a blog post about, because the packaging is so much classier than any other air freshener brand I’ve seen. I mean, also because it’s awesome—it smells great and does the job and all that. But nice packaging, people. How hard is it?
I even went ahead and got the matching (!) toilet bowl cleaner, despite the fact that it stays stashed in the linen closet. The guests in my household get all the pretty toys; us regulars get the old weird crusted-over knockoff Clorox crap.
They have great packaging, which yeah, makes a difference! Plus it “does the job and all that.”
Way to represent ROYGBIV Eleanor!
She was so serious about it. She asked for help with the order so she wouldn’t mix them up!
[…] Yesterday’s post was more about how we use the space, but today I wanted to share some more photos of the playroom. It isn’t quite done, but nearly so. […]