A Room for Our Princess

For two years, Grace slept in her crib, in our bedroom, out of necessity. Right after our friend moved out earlier this year, we discovered I was pregnant. We talked about moving to a place with more space and a third bedroom before this baby arrives. So for the time being, we turned the spare room into a playroom for Grace. She loved having the room and spent quite a bit of time in there cooking in her kitchen, playing with her doll houses, and whatever her imagination came up with.

We couldn’t find anything better than our current home, so we have put our move on hold. So finally, with only 10 weeks of this current pregnancy to go, we went out last week and bought the necessities to turn the playroom into Grace’s very own bedroom. We started out on a Wednesday evening (after church and a stop at the store) while Grace was away for the night with Grandma and Grandpa Cavinee. Dave and I went to work immediately – he started the bed while I worked on the toy organizer. Let me just say it now, it was a NIGHTMARE. Dave was fighting with the bed and I was wishing I could help more. (Huge belly and being the weak person I am, didn’t allow me to do much.)

I thankfully had very few issues with the toy organizer and had it together pretty quickly. I had Dave tighten the screws just in case and I proceeded to place the canvas bins in their places. I liked that the bins came with parts to place in the bottom so they
were held open and sturdy. As I opened the last bin to put on the top shelf, I realized it had been too easy to not expect some problem. That last bin had holes in it. I was able to still set it up to be used until we could get it replaced.

I moved on to help Dave with the bed. He had the frame put together and we figured out how the bed rails were to go on. Unfortunately, the rails were not made very well, and we couldn’t slide or pop them on. Dave got out the hammer and had to ‘fix’ the
size and after a lot of struggling, he was able to get the rails on and secured to the bed.

Next up, the canopy. I was NOT impressed from the very beginning. We had two tiny poles to screw together with tiny screws to be used for each of the bed corners. The screws were crooked and the poles were not securely attaching. We continued on. I got out the velcro pieces and put them on the poles. I wondered who’s brilliant idea it was to simply use velcro to hold a toddler’s bed and canopy together. The last piece was too small. Another faulty part to the bed. We were stuck at that point. We decided to put it away for the night and return to Toys R Us to next day with the faulty pieces for the bed and toy organizer.

Also that night, I got out the new princess bedding set to wash. As I started filling the washer and putting in the items, I realized things weren’t looking right. First I thought
the small princess pillow was a little bonus since it was in the picture on the packaging. Then the bed ruffle and extra big curtain made it click. Not one single item in the package was what it was supposed to be. Luckily, it was purchased at WalMart very
close to our house and we gathered it up and returned it that night. We did that in the middle of our bed and canopy issues to take a break and get the bedding issue resolved. Thankfully we got our money back, and found an even nicer Disney Princess bed set for our princess’ bed.

Thursday we had a baby check up and afterwards we spent hours returning the bad parts we had, buying a new mattress for the crib, some items for baby Darren, etc. We were out all afternoon and arranged for Grace to spend one more night with my parents since all of our issues delayed the room being ready in time. We again came home and went to work on the room and continued on until the wee hours of the morning.

The canopy was not so hard to put together this time around. After realizing the only beds in stock were and upgraded version, the manager at Toys R Us told his worker to GIVE US ALL THE CANOPY PARTS. I was thrilled to see they did away with the horrible tiny screws and velcro pieces.

It was such a relief to see the bed set up with the canopy and princess bedding set up alongside her bookcase full of princess items and her toy organizer full of toys. We still have some toy organizing to work out but we’re very happy with the way Grace’s bedroom turned out. When she came home, Dave had to put one final touch on the curtains and I took a few pictures knowing she would give the room the ‘lived in’ look in no time. 🙂 Grace could hardly wait and resorted to ‘army crawling’ her way to the door to try and sneak a peek. She was THRILLED to see the door with the princess stickers and what was behind the door – her very own Disney Princess bedroom. She
instantly went to her bed, got under the covers, and pretend slept- snoring and all.

I love what we were able to do for our little girl and we are so happy about how much she likes it. Now… to get her transitioned from sleeping in the crib in mommy and daddy’s room, to sleeping in her toddler bed in her bedroom.