We moved into our house just over 4 years ago, and we knew we were not going to use the formal dining room for that specific purpose. We made the decision to make it a playroom for our son.

Slowly over time, as he has grown (Sean is now 5), we have added pieces to this room to make it as functional and clean as possible.

The first thing I did to make it look more age appropriate, I hand cut safari animals decor (hippo, giraffe, elephant and lions) out of a very large roll of vinyl. I placed all of these as a border around the mid section of the wall.

The light is our favorite thing in the room. This light (coral pendant) is from a great New Zealand based designer, David Trubridge, who is based in Hawkes Bay where my parents reside. While we purchased this in New Zealand, his designs are now available in the US.

By the time Sean was 3 we definitely needed storage – my husband wants to give Sean the PlayMobile toys he remembers as a kid; myself, its Lego sets, and then Sean has a collection of Thomas the tank engine and rubbish trucks (garbage trucks). To store all these, we bought great Lack hidden mount shelves from Ikea, and storage boxes that we arranged in a stair design. This way we can use the tops as additional shelving. The storage boxes are eco-friendly recycled fabrics from Way Basics.

We bought the colors palette together with the stripped rug, which again was bought from Ikea (however in Germany).

The room has a great bay window for natural light and we use the area for his desk. This desk is from Land of Nod and has three levels and grows with Sean – we recently raised this table to the next level. It has a cool paper roll feature on the side.

The two bean bags in the room made by Beanz (a New Zealand company), can be used for both inside and outside. We use these all the time on the deck, for watching movies/TV in the lounge and for reading or relaxing in Sean’s playroom.

We added some of Sean’s art work on the wall, in bright-colored frames and alternating but matching colors.

The last additions were his cool chairs from West Elm with the homemade chair bags featuring safari animals, which were needed when we raised his table.

The best thing about this room, is by having a dedicated play room, we seldomly have toys else where around the house. They stay contained in this one room 🙂