Geekling's bedroom - 3 years old

We've made a number of changes to Geekling's room around his 3rd birthday.  The biggest change was moving to a single left bed.  His toddler bed was getting too small, especially when he'd occasionally want one of us to lay with him for a cuddle.  We worried the new bed would be a bit high up but he had no problem climbing in and out, and manages to do so on his own at any hour of the day or night.

 View from the doorway - the loft bed.  Lots of storage.  There is a pull out desk part but at the moment that is in the far left corner, with the tubs stacked by it, as Geekling loves to use the cubby hole as a reading nook.  We bought a cheap LED touch light from IKEA that is a magnet and it sticks to the underside of the bed which is a metal frame.

New 'big boy bookshelves' - we previously used the bookshelves in our loungeroom but replaced them.  The bottom shelf holds his trains and balls, the next two shelves house his books.  Above is his basket of finger puppets, his money box, a photo or picture of his choice and his bug catcher.  Above is things that he needs supervision with.

The small table works wonderfully for a small train set up, matching games, using his zen garden and all manner of work.  We must replace the rocking octopus with a proper chair but right now he enjoys it as is. 

The white wardrobe and drawers will soon be replaced with a woodgrain color to match the rest of the furniture, and the white furniture will be transferred to the new baby's room.  

The room is starting to look quite cramped in photos due to the size of the bigger furniture and angle of the door but it has plenty of floor space, especially for a little person.

Previous posts about Geekling's room:
Geekling's newborn nursery
Geekling's new bed
Geekling's bedroom - 2 years old

In the garden...

Sometimes I curse having such a large yard.  We haven't gotten around to much of the landscaping we'd planned when we first bought the house 5 years ago, and often it just looks like a weedy mess.  But it never ceases to provide things to explore, explain and play with.

Geekling talking to a praying mantis we caught and kept for a 'sleep over'.  Any bugs we catch have a maximum one night stay.

Here's a little more about our bug catcher and other bugs we've had visit

Feeling a snail crawling on the skin

 Dancing with a "ribbon leaf" (lemongrass) on the trampoline

Eggs from our very own chickens

Other garden delights include:

• blowing gently on a spider on his web to make him 'dance'
• finding the odd brightly coloured gum leaf in our mostly non-deciduous yard
• picking flowers and leaves and using them in crafts or in the bath
• smelling and tasting herbs and vegies from our vegie patch
• playing fetch with our dog
• weeding and feeding the weeds to the chickens
• watering plants
• painting the fence with water... the list goes on!

Geekling is going to be a big brother!

The news is out!  Geekling is going to have a baby brother or sister!

Baby #2 is due in early October, and so far Geekling is very excited.  He kisses and pats my stomach, and talks about all the things he'll help with and things he'll teach the baby.  He excitedly took our recent scan photo to daycare for show and tell and then begged to take it again the next day!  He actually came to the recent scan with us and tells everyone he saw his baby on the TV in the dark room.  Its all very sweet.

Bathroom renovation

Our bathroom was so gross I took pictures some time back with the intention of sending them to a Better Homes & Gardens renovation competition.  The previous owners had done a fast and nasty renovation prior to selling and to us newbies it looked fine.  For a while.

The rusty enameled metal bath had been painted with regular house paint.  Not only did it start flaking and peeling off really fast, but as there was some texture to the paint due to the brush strokes, it was impossible to keep clean - dead skin and soap scum got trapped in the ridges too easily.  The more we scrubbed, the more paint came off!  The cracked ceramic sink got the same house paint treatment, but the paint flaked off pretty fast leaving an unpainted (but still cracked) sink.  There was only one double towel rail and the towels hung so close together on it that they never dried.  Geekling's towel hung over the door.  The wall behind the towel rail began to grow massive mold stains, and most the grout above the bath was blackened or pink with mold.

I couldn't find proper before photos but here are some early demolition ones:

The floor was tiled with little ceramic mosaic tiles.  It was slow going getting them all lifted up!

You can see above how dirty the bath was.

And here is the finished product (minus a shower curtain and rail):

Need to wash our nice new towels before we hang them.

All work was done by my husband and myself and our wonderful father in law.  We had no idea what a massive job it was and were so lucky to have someone who has done his share of renovating before to guide us and do a lot of the early work.