Everly's Bedroom - A Toddler Room Tour
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We have been living in our new home for just under a year, and in that time, Everly has moved bedrooms, moved from a cot into a toddler bed, and then into a regular sized bed and she’s also gained a little brother. That’s an awful lot of change for one little girl to go through in a year, and she’s handled it all so well. Click here if you’d like to read my post on transitioning from a cot to a toddler bed, it doesn’t need to be a long and scary process, and I am 100% certain your little one with surprise you with how well they adjust.
Today I want to share with you what her bedroom looked like once we converted her cot into a toddler bed. We did this at about 17 months, and she has now just turned 2. Her room now looks similar to these photos, except she is now in the big bed and the toddler bed has gone back to being a cot and is in Aaron’s room. I’ve kept the room as simple and open as possible, as I really like ideas behind the Montessori method: a child should have freedom of movement, and should be able to move independently around his (carefully childproofed!) room.
In a traditional Montessori room, there is no cot, but rather a bed/matress on the floor that the baby goes straight to sleeping on. I’m not quite that brave, and really loved our cot, but I was pleasantly surprised at how easily Everly did transition from being confined in a cot, to having complete freedom in her room. You can read more about how we did the transition by clicking here.
The Bed
This is the Stijl Cot from Cozi Cot (which included the toddler panels to convert the cot into a little bed).
I JUST loved how cute the bed is, and how perfectly sized it was for Everly. She could get on and off the bed herself (she only actually fell off the bed once, much to my surprise, and got back on within a minute and carried on sleeping). My only concern is the edges are a bit ‘sharp’ and little one’s are more likely to bump their heads, but Everly didn’t actually ever do this more than once or twice. What I particularly loved about this set up was I could carry on using Everly’s cot sheets, as you are still using the same matress as the one that was in the cot. This means we didn’t ever actually need to buy separate toddler bed linen, as she carried on using what she used in her cot, and then she went into an actual regular sized single bed and has used regular sized linen since then.
Also a note on bedding, Everly has always kicked her blankets off, and so she hasn’t ever (and still doesn’t) use a duvet. I just dress her really warmly, and then she goes to sleep with a woollen blanket that always ends up either on the floor or at the bottom of the bed. But it’s there in case she needs it. She also doesn’t actually use the pillow (the idea of a pillow is a bit like the idea of the duvet…us adults can’t imagine not using them, but they are ‘learned’ necessities and if they have never has them, toddlers/babies don’t know what they are missing. The pink fluffy pillow below is more for decoration that actual use, although I use it when I lie with her in bed for story time.
Chest of Drawers/Clothes Storage
This chest of drawers is actually an old piece from my moms house which she painted for Everly. It’s only now (at 2 years old) that Everly has been able to open her drawers (they are really heavy) and even now she doesn’t generally take everything out…but then again, she is a girl and I can imagine a boy might do things differently haha.
I keep her nappies (we do cloth nappies…click here to read more about that) in the top 2 drawers. Then the second two drawers are for her cloths, and the bottom drawer is filled with the next stage of clothes as well as shoes.
On top of the shelves you can see her pink Rose Quartz night light (although this doesn’t get left on at night…click here to read where we got ours from), a clock, a few meds, tissues, and her video monitor. The video monitor has been an amazing thing to have since she moved into a big bed, because now we can keep an eye on her and see what she’s up to when the door is closed. Everly has always been really quiet when she wakes up from her naps, and so I’ve always assumed she was just sleeping. Now with the monitor, I’ve watched her wake up, head to her book shelf and easily spend 30 minutes ‘reading’ her books. I say reading in inverted commas, because up until the last month, she hasn’t once tried to open her curtains or turn on her light and so would be ‘reading’ her books in the darkness. I don’t actually mind what she does in her room, as long as she’s quiet. Obviously, first prize is that she is actually napping, but on the days when she wakes up early/doesn’t actually sleep…it’s great that she is happy to amuse herself relatively quietly.
Toy & Book storage
Everly’s books are kept on a little old pine shelf we had in her old room. I had soft storage boxes from H&M (the pink and white ones you can see on the open shelf below) which I have always kept her toys in. Now these still work really for her toys and blankets (please tell me I’m not the only person whose child loves blankets?).
The plastic box under her books is where her linen, spare changing mat blankets (i use pretty receiving blankets over a waterproof change mat to change her nappy as they look so much prettier than the actual boring old grey change mat that came standard with our Dischem Nappy Bag) & box of blocks stay. Since moving our compactum to Aaron’s room, we change her nappy on the big bed in her room. It’s not at the greatest height, but it works none the less.
I don’t like clutter (although I’m sure close family are shocked to read that as I have been known to be a bit of a hoarder) but I’ve always tried really hard to keep my kids’ rooms free from clutter. As you can see from Everly’s toy shelf (my father-in-law built this above shelf for guests to use for their clothes when the house we now live in used to be a guesthouse…click here to see what it looked like before we moved in!), I try to keep things very minimal. I love wooden toys, not just because they seem to have become really trendy again, but because there is something timeless and magical about a wooden toy, as opposed to plastic. I then swop out her toys every now and again (from the small collection she has) and she loves this as it’s like she’s getting new toys to play with.
I keep her toiletries (wipes, bum cream, powder etc) on the shelf above her toys, and this is also where her ‘DooDoo’ and dummy are kept. She' only gets these things for nap & bedtime, and keeping them high up out of her reach helps to keep them just for sleep time. It’s also become a fun part of our routine, she she hands them to me when she wakes up and we put them on the shelf together when she wakes up, and she helps me take them down when it’s nap time.
And then at the very top of the shelf is the special Nifty250 poster I made to document my pregnancy with her. This came out so much better than I imagined it would, and I have since made one for Aaron too!
Hanging Space
I have one set of hooks that hubby put up near the door, this holds Everly’s towels, hats, and a few other little bits and pieces.
And then behind the door I found this door hanging rack that fits over the top of the door. This is where I hang her nappy bag and our beloved UbuntuBaba Stage 2 carrier. I don’t use this carrier much, as I’m generally carrying Aaron in the Stage 1, but hubby uses this often, and Everly loves riding on Daddy. It’s also got space to fit her wet bag (the waterproof bag we take with us when we travel that holds her nappies in for the day…we got ours from Trendlings.
Decor pieces
It is nearly impossible to drill into our old sandstone walls, and as the inside walls are actually mud walls, you risk huge chunks of wall falling out & crumbling when you do. So, I have had to make use of the original nails in the walls, and hubby managed to put up two more for my near the door. But what I do have a few things hanging on the walls in Everly’s room and they bring me such joy to look at them.
The first is this beautiful custom wall hanging by Woven Whimsy, which matches Everly’s room perfectly. Danielle is just the sweetest (she’s also a molecular geneticist by day…how amazing!) and set about to find the perfect shades of blush to make my order.
The second piece on her wall is one of my photographs of our cat Amber, as a kitten. This photo was actually on her wall in her nursery, and I love that it still fits her toddler room.
I also have a custom made pouffe and mat, both hand crocheted by the most wonderful lady called Jabu who runs Zende Handmade Creations. I met Jabu a few years ago at the Creighton Aloe Festival, and since then have bought so many beautiful things from her, and share her work on all my social media platforms so that other people can find her. She’s wonderful!
And lastly is Everly’s birth announcement, which was made by the loveliest lady I know, Jess from Watercolour Heart Illustration. It details Everly’s date of birth, her weight and height and is just so pretty. You also can get one done any time (I only actually ordered it when Everly was nearly a year) and I still need to get one for Aaron.
All of the wooden frames you can see are from Mr Price Home.
And lastly, perhaps my most favourite thing about her room is her custom made name plaque on her door. I actually had one made for Aaron’s room first, and then once that was put up, I realised I just HAD to have one made for Everly’s room too.
Taneille, from Liv Bespoke was just so wonderful to deal with, and send me endless messages with ideas and then step by step process photos so I could make sure it was exactly what I had in mind. And it came our perfectly! I can’t recommend Live Bespoke enough.
So there you have it, a tour of Everly’s toddler room. As it stands now, her room pretty much looks the same, except the cot is no longer there and we’ve moved the big bed into the corner where the cot was. I plan on getting an actual wardrobe for her room next, as her clothes are getting bigger and she needs some hanging space, but for now, everything is still very functional for her.
I’ll do a full room tour of Aarons room soon too (I better actually get on that before he’s a toddler!) so look out for that post soon.
