What Stays and What Goes

When we built this house, we didn't know how important the small bedroom on the first floor would become.  It is the only room in the house that has the ability to change or morph into what we need at that moment in time.  When we brought Elliott home from the hospital -- the  little room across the hall from our bedroom was his nursery...

Every other room in this house has one specific job. The kitchen is the kitchen...the living room is the living room...but this little room is the one room that has morphed. When Elliott moved upstairs to share a room with Ross -- the little room became my sewing room.  After I opened my fabric store, it became a den for John, with some deer heads hanging on the walls.  When I started to write my book -- it became a home office for me -- with a computer desk and an embroidery machine.  After Lillian was born -- it went back to being a nursery for a baby.

There are two elements that have stayed through many morphs...

One is this wall. I covered garage sale frames with pieces of fabric.  I created this during the sewing studio phase -- so I could pin projects up. When the room became Lillian's room -- I hung a collection of clocks and some pictures of her "people".  She loves it..and the colors still work...(duh)....

The second element is the black and white tile "floor". It's actually a 4x8 sheet of masonite, covered with cheap stick-on tiles. My cousin Jackie helped me do this floor so I could move my rolling chair from my computer to the embroidery machine. We just layed it on top of the brown carpeting and it worked great. I always loved it.

As Lillian's room, there has been a morph within the morph. During her first year, it held her crib, a changing table and a few Curious George stuffed animals. When she was a year old, I moved in a toddler bed and decorated with dinosaurs. Dino curtains, Dino pillows and sheets. Just when I thought it was perfect -- Lilly declared she was "not into dinosaurs" anymore.

Now she's the all-Princess-all-the-time girly girl... The twin bed we used for a sofa is now her actual bed...and my cousin Linda helped me establish a new theme last week....it is really awesome....