Caleb's Room

We finished Caleb's room today. (And not a minute too soon!  We leave for China tomorrow morning at a quarter past ridiculously early.)  I know this has been a long time coming, but I wanted to get it all together before I posted pictures.  Even now, there are a couple small details which will have to wait until we are home from China.  But mostly, it is ready, and we couldn't be more excited to show it to you.

This has been a group effort, for sure.  Tom oversaw the furniture painting, hardware installation, and bank rolling.  The girls created some artwork, painted furniture, and donated toys.  And I did the sewing and quilting.  Nearly every item in this room was handmade, thrifted, or repurposed from things we already had.  This was a low budget room!

To the left as we enter the room stands the bookshelf filled with toys, books, puzzles and various stuffed friends.  Take a good look at this, because it is likely to the be the last time you see it this organized.

Moving to the right of the bookshelf is the wall hanging I'm working on.  It's one of the last unfinished pieces.  It still needs to be quilted, but I wanted to hang it up for you too see where it goes and what it looks like.  I wanted it to have a homespun feel, like the rest of the room, with motifs representative of an active boy.  So, enter the plane, boat, climbing tree, baseball and bat.  Also represented are home and an American flag.  Around the border I stitched this verse:

God created boys 

full of spirit and fun,

to explore and conquer,

to romp and run. 

Under the window sits a little antique table.  This was the element of the room that I stressed over the most.  More than anything else, I wanted a little table for Caleb to sit at and play with his puzzles, trains, cars, what-have-you.  Finding said table was another matter altogether.  In the end, we chose to cut the legs down on an old enamel top table we already had.  That was a bit of an agonizing decision until Tom assured me that new legs could easy be purchased if we want to raise it back up again at a later time.  We painted the apron on the table a light blue and I covered the drawer with red, white, and blue paper.  The pint sized chair we found for a couple dollars at a thrift store, already painted a bright shade of blue.

Ah, the bed!!  I bit off a bit more than I could chew with this quilt, and not because it was difficult to make.  It was really quite simple to cut out the homespun blocks and piece them together in straight rows.  No, the difficulty came when I determined that this baby had to be hand-quilted.  That part has been very time consuming.  In keeping with the homespun feel, I took large, chunky stitches, but it was still slow-going.

Above the bed, Maggie is showing you the loft.  We'll call this the Lego Loft because that is where the Legos are going to stay if I can help it.  On the wall in the loft is some artwork the girls and I water-colored of a car, a boat, and a train.

On the last wall sits the dresser.  That dresser was the changing table for my first four babies!  It was originally stained brown. Then, for a few years, it was a slick black.  And now it sports a snappy coat of barn red paint.  Above it hangs the painting I found at a thrift store in town.  I knew as soon as I saw it that it was coming home to Caleb's room.  I just love the childish simplicity and the fact that it was so obviously painted with love, probably by a grandmother or other family member.  "Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old, he will not depart from it." Proverbs 22:6

You may notice that both of the photo frames in Caleb's room are empty.  That's because we are waiting to fill them with photos of Caleb with his new family!!

These blocks have been around here for 25 years or so.  The girls recently gave them a fresh coat of paint and I sewed them a new tote bag.

The barn was built by my brother-in-law Jack several years ago.  At Target, we found these fun barn animals to go in it.  Push their bellies and they moo, bleat, oink, and neigh.  Don't ask me how I know.

The girls have been making sure the toys aren't terribly lonely the past few months, but they are growing weary of waiting.

We all are!

 Hurry Home, Caleb!!!

We can't wait for you to be here with us playing in the room we lovingly created just for you!

That's me above.

In about 15 hours!

Love,