I’m back sharing another space from our holiday house: the playroom. When we originally bought this home, this room was an open (no door) room. So although it has a closet and windows, it wasn’t really a proper bedroom, but more like a study room since there was no way to close off the room from the front living room. There are three other bedrooms in this home (which we’ll share soon!), so our goal with this space was to make it into more of a playroom with some overflow/optional sleeping space for large families or kiddo naps. 🙂

Here is a before and after of the room from roughly the same angle. As you can see, we really didn’t change all that much other than refinishing the floors and painting the walls (plus furnishing).

The main change was adding a door so this room could be closed off at times. This was a pretty unique project that our contractor, Mike Martin, worked on. We wanted to keep the original arch doorway, which meant we had to get pretty creative with these doors. They ended up buying large pre-made doors, flipping them over, and shaving them down to fit the arches. I found the door hardware on eBay, since we wanted something vintage that would speak to the age of the home (even though obviously this door is not original). And we decided to make the doors swing outward (instead of in) because this is a smaller room, and with the doors swinging in this would extremely limit what furniture could ever go in the space. The doors swinging out aren’t exactly perfectly ideal either, but it works for this house.

I’m interested to see how guests use this room. We thought about hanging curtains on the inside of the door, so a guest could get a little more privacy if they were using this room as a bedroom. But I wasn’t sure if maybe I was just overthinking that? Idk.

I really love the look of the doors from both the inside and outside of this playroom. Turned out so pretty! They may not be the most functional doors in the world, but they are really pretty and certainly an upgrade from no doors, which is what we had before. 🙂

Can’t you tell I’m an optimist?

We envisioned this room to be a playroom for Nova and Marigold, and any other families with children who stay in our home. We have toys, a little picnic table, coloring books and simple art supplies, a chalkboard, and a vintage rocking horse from our childhood (he’s already been well loved over the years but still rocking!). Over time, we hope to fill up the wall that has the red hats with more kiddo art and make a little gallery wall. We already have our first piece—our niece Penelope made a family portrait for the Larsons. Excited for all the play that will hopefully happen in this room over the years! Thanks for letting me share. xo. Emma

Sources: Trundle Bed / Yellow Pillow / Rug / Curtains from TJ Maxx / Picnic Table / Art Supply Cart / Farm Toys / Ukulele / Cowboy Hats / Farm Puzzle / Chalkboard / Kid chair and rocking horse are vintage.

Credits // Author: Emma Chapman. Photography: Janae Hardy. Photos edited with A Color Story Desktop.