safari-bedroomI’m ashamed to admit that I have at least four, partially written blog posts… There are some great stories to share, about our first sk-ing experience, stay on the MCS Farm and latest visit from Grammy. My only defence is that it’s been a crazy start to the year, so crazy that I was put on stay-in-bed sick leave for a week. So while I do intend to finish those posts, scout’s honor, here’s a brief cheat of an update to share the extreme makeover we’ve been spending time on here.

Our no-longer-little guy is now 4 feet tall and we’ve all come to the same conclusion:  While he still fits into the toodler bed that we morphed into a tent bed, (Remember that? If not, click here to reminisce.), the time has come for the next bed. Discussions and inspiration boards have flourished over the past weeks, with the pace picking up this week as we find ways to fill the huge and temporary gap in our lives as Jay is gadding about (okay, actually toiling hard) in London for a week.  Check out our inspiration board on Pinterest.

I feel like we must have done something right to imprint his African heritage on him, because Calvin definitively wants to turn his room into “the African savannah.” This has been his consistent request over almost a year. So here goes! We’ve defined the anchor points of what this means: bunk bed converted into, you guessed it, a safari tent. Bedding in khaki, tan, orange, brown and bushveld green hues. A chest of drawers he can actually see into. A new, huge carpet to pull the room together. Oh yes, and we’re going to create a 3-D acacia tree in the room — think painting a silhouette and mounting dried branches from the wall and roof. (Don’t ask me how I get myself into these things! Oh right, that was my deluded idea when we were brainstorming… but you’ve got to admit it has the potentially to be so cool! Or a design disaster.)

One view of the current room i.e. 'BEFORE"

One view of the current room i.e. ‘BEFORE”. (FYI, the giant cardboard box current houses a giant wooden hippo and occasionally our resident big cats.)

After I lost my heart (but thankfully not wallet) to the furnishing offerings from PBkids, we spent time identifying less costly alternatives. (Do you think they make that indoor tree-house-styled bed in queen size? Just asking.) Turns out Calvin lost his heart to a not-wallet-wrenching metal bunk bed from IKEA.

We also discovered the pinpoint accuracy of modern data mining. Within days of us intensely visiting various websites and discovering truly exorbitant furnishers, our virtual and real mailboxes began receiving stunning catalogues (Who knew Restoration Hardware was getting into the bunk bed trend? BTW, I forecast bunk beds to be a major current trend.) Plus siren calls to ‘come back and look at more of our _____’ – the category being something we had browsed elsewhere. Hmmm. Privacy anyone? Cookies pose risks other than to your nutrition.

Having determined options that, in total, are less than one PBKids bunk bed, Operation Safari Makeover is moving from inspiration towards  perspiration. The orders have been placed for carpet, bed, chest of drawers, linen and a new lamp that Hemingway would approve. Within a few weeks we will be wielding tools and testing our martial bonds in that modern form of warfare known as “some assembly required.”

P.S. Friends, you know how to reach me so please let me know if you are interested in any of the following items. We will otherwise be Craigslisting and/or Freecycling:

  1. This Kritter bed with mattress (free)
  2. A six-drawer chest of drawers, 23 1/4 inches wide, 15 inches deep, and 53 1/4 inches high. This item is for sale, make me an offer.
  3. A custom built, solid pine corner bookcase unit. This is unpainted so you can varnish, paint etc. to suit your needs. It is an L-share and designed to be usable in multiple configurations. Bearing this in mind, dimensions are 43 inches by 28 inches (you’d decide which was it goes, so either can be width or depth), and 39 1/2 inches high. This item is for sale — make me an offer. (I have furniture bills coming!)

 

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