Reading Nook, Swing And Art Wall In The Playroom

I love how this room is starting to come together! Not only is it bright and fun – it also helps keep our stuff organized! Now there isn’t any excuse for toys to be out of place – this room has been designed around puzzles, books, arts and crafts, make-believe and all other things involving “child play”. Everything has a home. There is even empty storage space now so that we have room to grow into the room later.

The first thing I built for the room were the vertical work surfaces / easels. The second thing I wanted was some type of reading “nook” for the room and a swing (that is the Occupational Therapist in me – gotta have a swing)! I started by building 5 ledge shelves using the same plans I used for the picture frame ledge shelves in our family room.

Two of the shelves are painted blue and three are still their natural color (for now – I am open to suggestions on paint color). They are already loaded up with books! (For Eliana’s baby shower my sisters asked guests to bring a book rather than a card. Therefore, most of our books have been gifts or hand-me-downs from family and friends. Pretty Cool, right! I love getting books as gifts)!

Children love finding small places to crawl into. So I figured why not encourage crawling into a swing by a rack of books to cozy up with and read? That is the inspiration for the swing in front of the books. So far, Eliana loves to swing her doll, but I think as she gets more comfortable with the swing she will spend more and more time sitting inside of it to read. And if not, we will just take it down. We got this “Ekorre” swing at Ikea for $15! You have to buy the hardware separately for $3, but still – pretty good price for a swing! (Update: I just checked Ikea’s website and it looks like the price for the swing has gone up to $35).

The two blue ledge shelves sit above a folding table. The table folds down against the wall for extra space (in case we really want to push the swing higher). Above the collapsable table sits a rod with 7 buckets attached. These buckets organize our art supplies similar to how we organized our magnet toys and chalk. These particular buckets organize our markers, dot to dot markers, scissors, colored pencils, and other tools needed while being creative and artsy! The “Norbo” table and “Bygel” red organizing bins were also purchased at Ikea.

The magazine rack holds all of our colored paper. The “Be Kind. No Exceptions.” wall art I made, printed at home and placed in an Ikea frame. I call the back wall where the collapsable table and magnetic boards sit the “art wall”: