Drab Dumping Ground Turned Playful Playroom

Pop inside this boldly patterned playscape. It’s a vibe.

The assignment:

Create a fun playroom with lots of space for a five-year-old to move around and, well, play.

When we started, the room felt a bit sad with its old, warped laminate particle board desk and darkly stained wood trim everywhere. And since it is a playroom, we really took that to heart—playing with color, pattern and texture. Our goal was to transform the space by brightening it up, making it functional and adding a dash of whimsy.

Since one of the walls is wood and wouldn’t be papered, we decided to go a bit daring with the wallpaper, landing on this funky-yet-precious pattern from Chasing Paper.

Going big with blue meant finding two complementary blues to use with the wallpaper for the fourth wall, doors and trim. And with Valspar ___ and ‘In the Nick’ we took the boldness up a notch. Painting the doors using both of them added more depth to the room and took the builder-grade accordion doors from blah to bespoke.

After checking out a how-to video, reading a couple of blog posts and walking through every single step with the tool guy at Lowe’s—who was surprisingly knowledgeable, helpful and super encouraging!—I felt ready to tackle the butcher block desk. Creating this butcher block desk nook was my first foray into power tools, and I have to say, I’m excited to play with more of them in the future.

I learned a new skill and the final product turned out better than expected. Added a sherbert-y orange vintage mid-century modern Thonet chair for a pop of color and *boom*—a desk space perfect for art projects now and math homework later.

mushroom stools / wallpaper / floor lamp / rug / storage bin / woven cubes

To add more texture and coziness to the space, we went with a fluffy Flotaki rug. Well, two to be exact—placing them side by side for a more custom size to better fit the room.

We wanted to make the playroom as versatile as possible, so leaving lots of open space was key. That meant going with seating that could be easily moved if/when the space was needed for more expansive play. large leather poufs and these adorable, amazingly comfy mushroom stools fit the bill. (Plus, the shrooms can be used for play!)

Of course, we can’t forget the number one thing every playroom needs: storage! So we anchored a classic IKEA bookcase against the painted wall and threw some textural storage bins in there to house the, shall we say, less visually pleasing toys.

Across the room, under the window we added even more seating and storage with a padded bench made up of storage bins, filled with a smaller version of the bins we used on the bookcase.

Which leads us to the papered walls. We decided to go with a gallery wall using a limited number of larger, mostly simple, graphic art with white frames (and white space) so as not to compete with or overwhelm the wallpaper.

The result? Our client, Isley, loves it. So much so that we couldn’t get him to sit still long enough for a better photo.

As always, I’ve got all the sources linked below. Thanks for reading!