My Victorian Children

Why did I NOT take pictures of the girls' bedroom at ALL last year? I wish I had. We spent all of summer 2011 painting their room pink (Alan and I are good at spreading projects over weeks and weeks. If you want something to take much longer than it should, ask us to do it for you!) Then we had to determine the girls' style.

This truly interested me. Because if I had my druthers, I'd spend hours simply leafing mindlessly through decorating books. Then I'd hire someone to create those rooms in my home (because it would take too long to do it myself.) So the girls and I went on a style search. Yup, Victorian. Why not? It's flowers and lace and glitzy stuff on every wall and surface! It screams "pretty" and "feminine!" And, thanks to the decline of the 80's style, thrift stores are full of gilt-framed pictures of flowers and birds and ladies in big dresses.

We took apart their bunk beds and moved a formal rug from our room into theirs. Then began The Hanging: long IKEA drapes and mom's yard-sale lace valances; pictures, more pictures; candle sconces with plastic jewels dripping around their edges; shelves upon which to perch pretty, shiny, things; old family photographs in old fashioned frames. As each item was added, Evelyn clapped gleefully shouting "YES! Oh that looks BEAUTIFUL, Mommy! That is just PERFECT! I LOVE it!" It was awesome.

After that, every time I crested the stairs to our second floor, I'd glance in their bedroom and chuckle, thinking, "It looks like someone's grandmother lives in there."

I could kick myself for not taking a picture of it in that original state.  (Because after that, they moved all the toys back in and Alan and I neared nervous breakdowns each time we picked our way through their room. Plus, they kept adding to it: wall stickers, school artwork, plastic jewelry, etc. Everything but the ceiling was dripping with stuff.)

This weekend we rearranged their room. I get a charge out of this. They wanted their bunk beds back to recapture some floor space. I thought I'd recapture wall space, too. Thought I could gently take things away and awaken them to the serenity of Shaker style. But Evelyn cried at the "plain, boring walls." (Amelia doesn't seem to care too much. She was happy once her shadowboxes were hung next to her top bunk perch and she could fill them with her "treasures. Her favorite is a little oil lamp I found at Salvation Army--it aids in her Laura Ingalls obsession.) I wanted to sit down and have a serious talk with Evelyn, tell her how nice it would look without all that stuff looking messy and cluttered.

Then Alan stepped in. "It's their room. We don't live in here." And I realized that they LOVE it this way. It's THEIR room, and they love it. And boy do I love them.

So I need to take pictures of the NEW version of their Victorian room (Alan and I took back our formal rug and filled a corner of the room with a very non-Victorian but very-popular-with-them IKEA tent), and all is well with the world. Except that, after lights out tonight, Evelyn bumped into one of the shelves hanging on the wall next to her bottom bunk and knocked off the ceramic mermaid perched on a snow globe. She may be re-thinking just how much is too much...