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Alianna’s room has made the full transition from a nursery to a big girl room. In the past couple weeks we moved the twin IKEA Kura bed into her room. Eventually we’ll flip it over so she can have a low loft bed, which I know she’ll love. For now, she has no idea it does that. She does LOVE to hang and swing off the bar at the end of the bed. With the addition of the bed, I swapped her nightstand out with the IKEA Ribba book ledges we’ve had for years. They’re positioned to work with the bed in either position. We’re all loving the new bed and she’s only fallen out once – yay! Her old dresser was a vintage find from a local antique store and was perfect size and height to use as a changing table. With baby Froggie on the way and since I took away Ali’s two drawer nightstand, it was time to get her a taller dresser. I went with the unfinished wood IKEA Tarva so I could customize the look for less money. I ended up building the whole thing myself (though Ali helped me with the drawers!) and doing all the painting and staining myself too. Usually when we do home projects Jason takes the lead. He’s more experienced and much more detail-oriented than me. He’s in a busy work season, though, so I’m pretty proud of myself for how this turned out. Ali was not crazy about the idea of a new dresser until the day she helped me build the drawers. Now that she’s personally invested, she’s very excited about it. In the upgrades to her room we also added a real curtain rod. When we moved in we bought a cheap tension rod to be used temporarily and almost two years later it kept falling down when she’d try to open the curtains. This room continues to be one of my favorites in our house.

A few months ago I wrote about her Lottie dollhouse and the Barbie furniture my granny name for me.

I bought a small digital clock to fit on her shallow shelves and it happened to have colored numbers. It’s actually been quite helpful in teaching her to read the time. We used to use a timer and light for “OK to come out of your room now” but we’ve been using a digital clock now that she can easily recognize numbers. With this clock it’s even easier to say, “You can get out of your bed when you see the green 8.”

I love all the special touches: this name banner made by a friend after her adoption, the flower was an adoption day gift from another friend, the crocheted owl blanket was a gift from her Nana for her 3rd birthday.

Here’s a before picture of the Tarva dresser, straight from the IKEA website.

And after paint and stain.