ardorathletics

[13-reasons-ideas]

Can’t Go Back Part 12

A/N: Thank you for being patient. This chapter gave me a lot of trouble. I decided not to add smut to this chapter in detail but it is implied due to them being underage at this point. I tried to keep it as tame as I felt was necessary. Due to Christmas being on Friday, I will post part 13-properly this time thank you Tumblr queue-on Wednesday. I will also post a bonus Christmas chapter on Friday. As always, feedback is more than welcome. Thanks and much love. -Em

I awoke Saturday morning to the tickle of gentle kisses being pressed to the back of my neck. I smiled as I rolled over to face my boyfriend. “G’morning.” I mumbled.

“Morning Bookworm.” He whispered back, between kisses. I sighed as he ran over a particularly sensitive spot. Bringing my hand around to play with the back of his hair, I tugged slightly to move his ministrations towards my face. Morning breath be damned. He peeked up at me, feigning timidity, before pressing a gentle kiss to my cheek. I giggled softly, still drifting in and out of sleep slightly. When I blinked a couple of times to really try to wake myself up, I grunted softly and pulled him in for a kiss. Rolling onto my back, he followed on top of me and kissed my nose and then he placed a gentle kiss on my lips. I snaked my arms around his neck and deepened the kiss slightly. Monty smiled softly against my lips and I ran my fingers against the back of his neck. He groaned quietly and pulled me with him as he began to sit up.

Once seated, he snuck his hand underneath the bottom of my hair, gathering some in his grip as he held my head. I sighed into our kiss happily. Monty moved his kisses to my neck again. I felt the gentle sting of his teeth when he nipped lightly. Then, he surprised me slightly when he slid his other hand underneath my-his-shirt and slowly dragged his fingers along my stomach. I was still rubbing the back of his neck until the realization of where this was going hit me. “Wait.” I spoke, breathlessly. It was really quiet so I wasn’t surprised that he didn’t hear me. “Wait.” I said again, slightly more audibly. His fingers and kisses stopped but he left his hand nestled underneath my shirt. He looked at me with dark eyes. It was obvious the cloud of arousal hadn’t lifted yet. I could tell my eyes were probably just as dark too.

“Are you okay?”

“Yeah, yeah I’m okay. Can we just slow down a bit for a minute?”

“Of course. Can I kiss you again?” I nodded eagerly but just before he could connect our lips together, my stomach grumbled. Loudly. He seemed to find that hilarious and burst out laughing so hard he fell and laid sideways across my bed.

“Oh hush. It’s not that funny. It’s breakfast time.” I couldn’t help but laugh along as I scolded him. I climbed off the bed and grabbed a cardigan from my closet. When I turned around, Monty was still laying on my bed, watching me. “Come on. Breakfast.” He still didn’t get up so went and climbed back on the bed. He made no effort to move, aside from pulling me over to him. “No no. Food time.”

“But your bed is so comfy Addy.”

“I know it is. But I’m hungry.” He still didn’t move but his stomach also grumbled. “And apparently so are you.” I stuck my tongue out and grabbed my pillow. His eyes widened just before I hit him with it playfully.

“You little shit.” He laughed and reached out to grab me. I shook my head and stood up again. Reaching out, I made grabby hands motion and he lifted his arms, allowing me to take his hands in mine. I didn’t think anything of the smirk that was plastered across his face. That is, until I attempted to pull him up. He didn’t move an inch. I took a deep breath and tried again. Still no movement. I tried again, huffing and groaning to make him move. I had no luck, so I let go of his hands and crossed my arms, pouting. “You’re cute.”

“Get up please?” I asked him, giving him my best puppy dog eyes. He smiled at me and finallymoved to get up. Together, we made our way downstairs to the kitchen. “Coffee?”

“Sure.”

“Black?”

“Yeah.”

“Coming right up. How do you feel about pancakes?”

“Delicious.”

“Okay, can you go into that cabinet and get the flour and stuff please?” I asked, pointing to the pantry while I got our coffees made.

After we were caffeinated and therefore, humans, we set about making pancakes. At least, I did. Montgomery spent more time ‘accidentally’ bumping into me and hip checking me than he did actually helping me cook. I caught him eyeing a wooden spoon out of the corner of my eye. “Don’t even think about it.”

“Think about what?” He asked innocently.

“You know exactly what I’m talking about. And enough with the hip checks. Cooking isn’t a contact sport.”

“It could be.” He murmured in my ear before biting it gently.

“Is that so?”

“Yes.”

“Well Casanova, you play your cards right and we can see what else we can make a contact sport later.”

“Casanova, hey? Might need to find another nickname for me Babydoll. I only have eyes for you.”

“It sounds hot so just go with it?” I felt my cheeks flare at the nickname.

“Fine, fine.” Once again, his stomach grumbled, and I laughed at the impeccably timed tension breaker.

“Breakfast will be done in a few minutes. I think I could get more done with you in the other room baby.”

“Sure. Is there anything you would be opposed to me watching on tv?”

“Pay per view porn.” I joked, somewhat seriously.

“Damn. There goes that plan.” He joked back and kissed the top of my head.

All day we had danced around the obviously growing sexual tension and innuendos. He had grabbed my butt a few times when I was getting up or we were doing something, I had accidentally placed my hand on his lap while we watched a movie. He made comments about me not squirming too much while we were laying on the couch. I commented on his height and how that might relate to… other things when I took advantage of his reaching abilities. There may have been some backtalking on my end and some raised brows that said keep this up and see where it gets you on his end.

By the time dinner rolled around and finished, I was feeling about four hundred degrees warmer than I had in the morning. Monty shot me coy glances all through dinner that made it very hard to want to eat food. “I’m full.” I muttered, pushing my plate away.

“Me too. Did you want to clean up now or later?”

“Later.” I replied quickly.

“Okay. What did you have in mind in the meantime?”

“I don’t know….” I stood and made my way around the table and perched myself in his lap. He placed one hand on my lower back and the other on my thigh.

“I think I have an idea or two.” He muttered, rubbing his hand on my thigh and leaning in to kiss me. I grabbed the front of his t-shirt and pulled him in closer, bridging the space between us. Our kisses turned heated almost instantly. The tension was beginning to crest as he pulled away. “None of the ideas involve you on your parent’s dining table Babydoll.” His voice was low and gravelly. My eyes widened and my cheeks flushed a deep red hue.

In one motion, I stood and bounded for the stairs. He was hot on my tail as I rushed for my room. He slammed my door upon entering. I forgot how strong he was. I stood in the middle of my room watching him watch me. It was as though he was a wolf stalking his prey. I bit my lip teasingly and suddenly he was on me again. Monty cupped my face in his hands as he kissed me. His tongue ran across my bottom lip and I granted him entrance as I thrust my hands into his hair. He broke our kiss again and began kissing and nipping his way down my neck to my clavicle. I closed my eyes and enjoyed the rest of our last night alone for the foreseeable future.

The following morning, I woke up pressed against Montgomery’s bare chest. He had his arm wrapped around me tightly like I was a very large stuffed animal. Smiling, I placed my hand on top of his and tried to go back to sleep for at least a few minutes. My body had other ideas, so I attempted to shimmy out of his grasp. All that did was make him pull me closer and nuzzle his face in my neck. So cute but so inconvenient. “Babe.” I whispered. He didn’t hear me and snored softly in my ear. I poked his arm gently, but he didn’t move. I tried shimmying out of his grasp again, but he still didn’t wake up. Sighing softly, I lifted his arm as carefully and slowly as I could. I rolled to the edge of the bed and sat up before setting his arm back on the bed. He proceeded to roll over onto his stomach and into my spot. It was slightly uncomfortable standing up and I hobbled to the bathroom on my tiptoes with light steps. I wasn’t concerned given our activities last night.

Back in my room after I had gone about my business, Monty was still snoring softly. He looked so peaceful that I didn’t want to bother him. Instead, I grabbed a sweater from my closet and crept downstairs to clean up the mess that we had… forgotten… about last night. I was scrolling through my phone when I heard footsteps come down the stairs. “Morning. There’s coffee ready if you want.”

“Morning Bookworm.” He came over and kissed my head and patted it gently. Odd but okay. I looked up and choked when I saw the picture on his back. “You okay?”

“Yeah. Yeah, I’m okay. Your back isn’t though.”

“You have sharp nails.”

“How’re you going to explain that one to the boys?”

“What do you mean?” He asked, acting innocent.

“Monty. Justin Foley is my best friend. I know you guys talk about sex. Also, that will be hard to hide in the locker room.”

“Right, keep forgetting you aren’t this innocent little princess.”

“You shouldn’t forget anymore.” I smirked. He blinked at me and raised his brows, shaking his head.

“Addison. We don’t have time for you to be all… feisty.”

“Sorry. But seriously, how are you going to get out of this one?”

“Bare minimum of truth?” I shrugged, accepting the answer, and stood to get a bowl of cereal. He must have noticed my stilted gate. “Are you sure you’re okay?”

“Hmm? Oh. I’m good, just a little sore. I should be fine tomorrow or Tuesday.” His brows furrowed. “Baby, I’m fine. If I need to take some Advil I can.”

“Okay….” He dropped the subject.

Before long, it was time for him to leave. He packed up his bag and I bid him goodbye. I watched him drive away and sighed against the door. Luckily, I had just enough time to tidy up the house a bit and make it look like I was the only one home all weekend, before mom was due to arrive home. We chatted for a bit and hung out before dad got home. If she noticed my walking, she didn’t comment on it. Dad on the other hand, was a different story.

“Why are you walking funny Addison?” He asked, accusatorily.

“I’m not?” I replied, feigning confusion and furrowing my brows.

“You are. You’re waddling.”

“It’s not that bad and it’s probably because I slept funny or something.”

“Mhmm sure. It looks like the way a girl walks after having sex.” He muttered and glared at me. I stopped and blinked at him. Did he really just say that?

“Who exactly would I be having sex with? I doubt that you’ve noticed, but I haven’t brought anyone home recently.”

“I don’t know what you and Justin do when he spends the night.”

I made a show of dry heaving at the implication. “No. Justin and I have nothing romantic or sexual going on. He is basically my brother at this point Dad. He’s into someone else anyway. I have reading to do for Government. If you need me, I’ll be in my room.” I ignored any other comments he may have made and spent the rest of my night in my room.

At school the next day, Justin surprised me and grabbed me from behind. “Good weekend I take it?” I asked.

“It was okay. Mom was out so I had the place to myself. Seth is gone again.”

“That’s good. Why the grabbing then?”

“I can’t be excited to see my best friend once in a while?”

“You can. You just seem different today.”

“Could just be that I slept decently in my own bed for a change. How was yours?”

“It was… great okay. I watched some tv, caught up on some writing. Nothing too crazy.”

“Didn’t text me all weekend.” He smirked.

“I thought you were going to Bryce’s or something. Didn’t want to interrupt guy time.”

He finally noticed how I was walking. The soreness was still there but it was duller by now. “Did you9 get hurt or something? You’re kind of walking funny.”

“No. Lady things Justin.” He made a face and nodded.

“Say no more.” He raised his hands to stop an explanation that wasn’t going to come. I laughed and ran off to class. But not before a discreet nod to Monty as we passed his locker.

[awfully-sadistic]

Stages

Yet another alternate universe.

Happy Valentine’s Day.

Age 2

“Guys, get in here!” Aiden Graves barked out his entrance while simultaneously nudging the front door open with a boot. He stepped inside with an armful of things in one of his arms. And his arms were ridiculously huge, bulging with muscles and a guaranteed trip to the city morgue with one well-placed punch so carrying boxes and bags seemingly overly stuffed to the brim was nothing to him. Yet, attached to his free hand and opposite brute strength and raw power, Aiden tugged in a waddling little toddler with the utmost care who was looking around in curious childish wonder.

“Ba!”

“That’s right, babygirl.” Aiden turned his attention to the sweetest little thang he has ever laid eyes on. There was pride reflected in his dangerous predator gaze and he just knew he would move heaven and earth for this little bundle of joy. He hasn’t known her for all but a few hours and he was already wrapped around the tiny little fist enclosed safely in his. No matter how much she tugged and tried to wander around freely, Aiden didn’t let her go. “You’re going to meet your new big brothers. Aren’t you excited?”

“Ba!”

Aiden chuckled deeply, “That’s right.” he said before he barked out again, “Benn! Bene!” he called out for his adult brothers, knowing they were somewhere around doing fuck knows what. He was desperate to cement their ties by announcing things as soon as possible.

“The FUCK do you want?” came the reply from somewhere in the house and he knew it came from the youngest and by far, most unruliest little brother on the fucking planet.

“One!” Aiden bellowed with no room for nonsense and then there was a clatter and something crashing before Bennett showed himself, tapping into his great speed to make it before Aiden finished counting to three.

“Goddamn, stop counting! I’m he--” Bennett cut himself short as he skid to a stop in front of Aiden and an adorable little toddler squealing at his arrival since it seemed so magical! Bennett’s golden glowing hues were wide and questioning as he took in the sight. “What the fuck--Aiden, what the fuck?!”

“What’s what the fuck?” Benedict Graves was the next one to come into the room and since he was entering in from behind Bennett, he didn’t see what his twin was exclaiming about until he stopped beside him. His own molten amber gaze widened and then narrowed as he took in his older brother’s expression. He looked pretty damn proud of himself. By now, Bennett was kneeling and Aiden had allowed the small child to go to him but not before firmly shutting the door and locking it.

“Don’t fuckin’ cuss at me, shithead.” Aiden scolded Bennett before clarifying, “This is Dot. She’s ours now. Get used to havin’ a baby sister ‘cause that’s what she is.”

“Are we kidnapping kids now?” Benedict asked sounding wholly unamused. He was trying to get a good look at this child Aiden thought it was worth getting thrown in prison for but Bennett had been hogging her.

“It’s worth it, believe me.” Aiden stated all too cocky about reading his brother’s doubts. Of course, he didn’t quite admit that he acted on impulse. He hadn’t planned on doing any law breaking when he went out today, but when he saw this little girl dragged along by a mother who didn’t seem to give two shits about her while the mother shopped, Aiden just snapped and kidnapped the child. The fun part wasn’t the fact that he stalked their route for a little while and while the little girl seemed to catch on really quickly, squealing and waving at him whenever she spotted him like a fun little game of hide and seek, the mother never caught on. No, the fun part was when he finally made away with her when mommy dearest was distracted and ducked into a child’s store a couple of miles away to spoil her with toys and clothes he knew they were going to need. No one bat an eye at a single father buying gifts for his little daughter who was so obviously smitten with him.

Not that anyone would have approached a scary and intimidating man such as Aiden in the first place, but if there wasn’t a scene, there was no need to disturb a sleeping bear.

He kept that secure and firmly to himself with no chance on allowing either brother to glean the thought. It was easy enough to distract himself from thinking anything else about it when he looked down at the toddler with a soft and tender expression that it took Benedict by surprise. Clearly the child couldn’t have been that--

“Bene. We’re brothers.” Bennett held the toddler in front of Benedict’s face with an exclamation of “We’re fucking BROTHERS. BIG BROTHERS!” and Benedict got his first, real good look at her. She was mixed, that much was clear considering the Graves were mixed themselves. She was darker than Bennett and Aiden but lighter than Benedict’s deep chocolate skin tone. She fit perfectly in-between that it wouldn’t look too off to claim that they were all related. After all, if people could accept that Benedict was related to Aiden and Bennett, she could easily fit in, too.

But what really captivated Benedict was her hazel eyes; they were round and bottomless. There was childlike wonder behind them and it was clear this little girl was full of so much love and affection and innocence, she showed it freely to a trio of strangers that had kidnapped her. She was a real princess among three very real monsters. She didn’t know what was going on. She was just... happy. It was almost too pure to handle and Benedict almost jumped in surprise as her pudgy little hands swatted him on both cheeks, grasping and grabbing at his dreads and squealing in delight at being able to touch them.

He smiled. It was faint and ghostly, but rumor (perpetuated by Bennett years later) has it that Benedict’s heart melted three times over that day. Just like that this little unnamed girl became Dot Graves with three, scary and overprotective brothers as her family who vowed to keep her safe, loved, and cherished above all else.

Age 5

“What do you mean you lost her?!” Aiden barked over the phone and Bennett had to pull it away from his ear to keep his eardrum from bursting. “I’m comin’ back.”

Bennett rolled his eyes before he answered sounding irritated. “We were playin’ a game, dipstick. She’s somewhere in the goddamn fuckin’ house, don’t COME HOME.” Bennett stressed. “Ya have to get this job done and it’s not like she can leave. All the goddamn doors are locked and childproof. Just hold your fuckin’ face. I’ll call you back as soon as I win this game!”

“The fuck did I say about cursing to me, Benn.”

“I can’t hear you, I have to find our sister.” Bennett pressed END on his cell before growling under his breath about how much a pain Aiden was while he pocketed his cell. He just had to ask to talk to Dot while they were in the middle of playing. It immediately began to ring again and knowing it was Aiden calling, he ignored it.

Bennett looked under the kitchen table, calling out with a stern, “Dot!” He spied nothing and straightened his spine to look in one of the overhead cabinets.

“Dot?”

Nope. Not there, too. He saw a couple of her sippy cups and of course, plates and bowls but nothing but dishes were up there. Where the hell could a five year old hide? Of course, there were plenty of places in the house and she was usually pretty good at these games considering she can squeeze into small spaces and stay as quiet as a mouse unless she wanted to be found. Fucking Benedict. Why the fuck did he have to teach her how to hide? It was almost impossible to find her without tapping into his powers and there was strict rules of playing with her concerning the use of ‘em to make it fair. Such as no scenting and tapping into her mind to find her location. Bennett used to cheat all the time until Aiden found out and beat the shit out of him for ruining the game for her.

Yet, there was a tactic he used as a last resort that wasn’t against the rules...

“Oh yeah...” Bennett grinned, suddenly taking on a wolfish appearance. It wasn’t just a metaphor, either. It was a minor shift, just enough to allow his footsteps to turn into heavy thuds and his voice to deepen into a raspy, scary sounding snarl.

“Little pig, little pig... let me in...” he roared throughout the house with a howl lingering at the tail end of his sentence. Somewhere within the house, he heard an excited little squeal and his grin curled in satisfaction showing off the gleam of terrifying sharp and needle pointed teeth.

“Found ya.”

Age 10

There was a knock on Benedict’s door. Without having to open it, he already knew who it was as her scent was already ingrained within his head, heart, and body. He didn’t move from his seat at his desk as he was in the process of putting together reports of his time in Bouncer duty.

“Come in, little one.” he called for the little figure just standing outside the door and it creaked open as if shy to intrude in his space at all.

Dot Graves stood in the doorway, an adorable little child with curly pigtails in her hair and clutching onto a stuffed unicorn Aiden had given her when she had first come to live with them. She affectionately named it Glitterbomb. Benedict put his pen down immediately and turned in his seat to give the little girl all of his attention.

Dot looked bashful at first, always intimidated by her older and much quieter brother, Benedict. She had always been reassured that she can talk about anything to them and she often did with what her little child brain could share; everything from movies she adored, to playing with her stuffed animals, and even talking about what the other kids in school said about her family.

She knew her family was different and as far as she could remember, it had always been her big brothers! She truly and deeply loved them and she didn’t care what anyone else said about her family. She was happy and she didn’t want anyone else, to be honest. Even if she didn’t have a true mommy and daddy like the other kids, she figured it was fine because Aiden was like her daddy anyway. And Bennett and Benedict were her big brothers. But little kids can’t fathom complicated ties like hers or felt what she felt; it was simple for her. She knew she loved her family even if others claimed it was broken. All they saw was that she was missing a real family. Aiden couldn’t be her daddy because where was her mommy? She tried asking that one time and it was the first time she had seen Aiden be so stern with her. He had knelt down to look her in the eye and took her by the shoulders. His grip was tight on such small, baby shoulders that it almost scared her. But the look on his face was imploring; she was facing an emotion her little brain couldn’t comprehend but it made her little heart turn over and she almost cried because all she felt was fear.

“Aren’t I enough for you? Aren’t we enough for you?”

Dot had only nodded because she was scared of saying anything else or not saying it fast enough would make Aiden not like her anymore. If Aiden didn’t like her anymore, then Bennett and Benedict wouldn’t like her anymore, either. Aiden seemed to feed her more of these fears by also saying,

“This will make Big Brother Bennett and Big Brother Benedict really sad if you keep saying these things, do you want them to be sad?”

Dot looked terrified and shook her head as her bottom lip quivered. Aiden had pulled her into a hug, the tightest she could ever remember, before he gave her a kiss on the forehead and told her she was a good girl.

That was the last time she questioned any aspect of their family until now. The teasing had started up again as she started a new school year. It wasn’t her fault. It wasn’t any of the kids faults, either. Parents talk. And children overhear their parents. And those children bring those rumors back to school were Dot had to hear them, be subjected to the ridicule and questions. She was beginning to feel such complicated emotions for a ten year old. She didn’t know what to do with them.

She didn’t know why her feet took her to Benedict. Maybe she was scared to face Aiden with these feelings and Bennett was too wild, even for her ten year old little mind to understand that if she said anything to him, he would most likely hurt all of those kids.

“You look sad, sweetpea.” Benedict said, thoughtful. Dot looked up in surprise. She didn’t say anything, still not sure what she could say, what would be okay but Benedict pat his lap and Dot stopped questioning. With a timid little look, she slowly started to make her way across Benedict’s room and when she stood in front of him, he effortlessly picked her up and settled her onto his lap. “Do you want to tell Big Brother what’s the matter?”

She did. She really, really did that she started to cry. She nodded with big tears rolling down her little cheeks. Benedict took a deep breath, unsure of what to do with his feelings. Whatever made Dot so upset had made him dangerously vindictive, but he hid those deadly intentions well just so he could get the story out of her before he acted upon anything. And there was going to be some acting. He bowed his dark head, turning up her little face so he could lap up those salty little tears with his tongue. 

To any outsiders, it would be shocking. Weird. Inappropriate. 

To Dot, however, it was as natural as living in this family. It was something the Graves had always done with her; they explained that by doing this, they were taking her sadness so they could share it with her. Of course, it was a child’s explanation for a child to comprehend. She couldn’t understand that the Graves Brothers did this because they were selfish and sick.

Dot stopped crying, nervously shifting and squirming in Benedict’s lap as she was subjected to his oddly intimate gesture. No matter what meaning was behind it, it always seemed to stop Dot from crying. When he was finished, Benedict pulled back and studied her expression. She was calmer now but there was no doubt she needed to talk. And he waited. And Dot noticed.

“It’s... school.”

Ah, he’s heard all this before. He inhaled through his nose, bringing Dot into his broad chest to hold her, comfort her. He rubbed her small back, idly played with her pigtails, rubbed her little bottom. “I know, sweetpea. I know.”

“I hate it.”

“I know, sweetpea. I know.”

“Do I have to go back?”

“No. Not at all.”

Dot pulled away, looking surprised. “Really?”

“Really. Your Big Brothers and I have been talking about pulling you out for a while now. Things have been... complicated with doing so.” Benedict nearly grit through his teeth. Dot would have been out of school a long time ago if they weren’t held back by welfare concerns and the like. Parents being too nosy, too questioning. Things not quite adding up with Dot’s family background and records. Of course, those had been falsified, thanks to a forger at the Clubhouse. He rubbed her cheek, his thumb caressing her soft skin with a encouraging smile only reserved for her. “We got you a tutor. He’s going to help you with school work at home. Probably be a lot better than what you’re learning in school with all that white-washed history--”

“What’s that mean?” Dot asked, quirking her head.

Benedict chuckled. “I’ll tell you when you’re older.”

“Who is going to be my tutor?” she smiled, feeling excited about getting to learn all on her own and at home, too! She had no way of knowing that the relief that she was going to be home 24/7 was also to her Big Brothers’ delight, too.

“His name is Dieter. He’s a real good friend of the family. He’s related to Uncle Garrett.”

Dot smiled brightly, her little face brightening up at the mention of another beloved family member. “Uncle Garrett!” He was Aiden’s best friend and was always bringing her gifts and candy. He visited a lot, almost every day!

Benedict smirked, “Yeah. That’s his cousin.”

Dot was really excited that her previous sadness was soon forgotten. Benedict noticed and was appeased that she was so focused on something else by now, that she would never have to question her family ever again. He pressed a kiss to her forehead and settled her on her feet. He gave her little rump a pat, to move her forward.

“Go on and play now, I’ll finish up this thing for work and then I’ll play with you.”

Dot looked so excited, she held up Glitterbomb. “Can we have another royal tea party?”

Benedict chuckled and nodded. “Anything you want, princess.”

Age 15 (going on 16)

Dot was suspicious. It was going to be her sweet 16 and as far as she knew, no one had mentioned it. Was it going to go by without anything from her beloved Brothers? That was fucking impossible! Right? Yeah. Right. They spoiled her endlessly. They wouldn’t fucking forget her birthday. And one of THE most important ones. Right? ...Right.

Dot’s eyes narrowed as she peered around the corner and saw Bennett drinking beer on the couch and watching a football game. Her birthday was tomorrow and she wasn’t getting any sort of mention or excitement hype up or anything. And it wasn’t like she was exaggerating. They did this sort of thing for her birthday every freaking year and yet...

“If you keep staring at me, I’mma fuckin’ bite you.”

“Wh-WHAT?” Dot jumped out of the corner before composing herself. “B-Big Brother.” she cleared her throat and crossed the livingroom to sit down besides him. She paid no attention to the screen whatsoever, not caring for football one way or another... unless Bennett was involved. If his favorite team was playing, she’d cheer along with him. But as far as she knew, this was just something for him to pass the time with.

He looked down at her, wearing that stupid smug grin he always wore. There was something else Dot was afraid to pin whenever Bennett looked at her, almost like seeing through her clothes if she could put it into words. It wasn’t creepy... well, not in the sense anyone would have pegged for someone who more or less openly leered at her and made no secret of doing so, it wasn’t like she minded...

Anyway, those were feelings way too complicated for what she wanted to talk about right now. 

“Little sister.” Bennett greeted in return before placing a hand on her leg, hooking his fingers around the soft flesh of her thigh and giving it a meaningful squeeze. His grip was possessively iron, it would be hard to move away if she had wanted to.

They sat in silence, Dot tuning out the sounds coming from the television and more so focused on Bennett and the noises of disappointment or cheers he’d make while watching. Dot shifted and right away, Bennett’s head snapped down to her. It wasn’t anything new; Bennett paid an obsessive amount of attention to her, always on the ball whenever she wanted to say something. There was obviously something she had wanted to say but she wasn’t saying it. Bennett knew this. And he had an inkling what might have been bothering her.

Okay, that was a lie. He knew damn well what was bothering her. Always a shadow within Dot’s mind--they all were if we’re to be honest here--Dot’s birthday was tomorrow and the lack of any indication that they knew was giving her doubt. But there was a reason everyone was so mums on the event. Just like Dot had thought, sixteen was a milestone for every... normal teenager. Dot wasn’t normal, not by any means, but a sweet sixteen was still important TO teenagers.

Granted, Dot wasn’t like any teenager, but the Brothers figured... well, it couldn’t hurt to make it special.

Sixteen was the year they were going to allow Dot to enter the Clubhouse. She didn’t know this. Obviously. But it was such a big deal and it was going to be such a big deal to her, that Bennett was certain she would forget all of this pre-birthday worries and insecurity once she got her present.

However, again... if we’re being honest, everyone knew that Aiden, Benedict, and Bennett’s little sister was the real gift to the Clubhouse. Bennett had to shake any feelings of jealousy off as it had taken him a very... really fucking long time to consider the thought of even sharing Dot’s attention with other Clubhouse members. Garrett had been the first of many, then Dieter, and then Liam and Vaughn. Everyone had been sooo curious about the little sister that turned the Graves upside down, inside out, and incredibly so incredibly “whipped” that once they laid eyes on Dot... they understood.

It would take an entire lifetime for Bennett to get over his jealousy issues with anyone eyeing Dot the way he and his Brothers did. It was no secret that as she got older, did their advances get bolder. Bennett made it no secret that he found Dot attractive... even if he did watch her grow up before his eyes. Aiden and Benedict may hide it better, but Bennett just didn’t try. He didn’t want to. He wanted Dot to look at him the same way he was looking at her. He was selfish and determined to stake his claim on her no matter how long it took and no matter how many times she may reject him under the guise that they were family. Granted, he hadn’t tried YET but he was prepared. Once Dot crossed that threshold onto sixteen... it was on.

Age 18

“Dieter said it’s important to get a college education...”

“Is that so?” Aiden absently grunted from the kitchen counter. He was chopping up meat for tonight’s dinner talking to Dot as she sat at the kitchen table, watching. He wouldn’t allow her to help since he took it upon himself to provide for her, to feed her. He just wanted her to sit there and keep him company. And where he could keep an eye on her while she played a mobile app on her phone. He always had her turn her ring tone on so he’d know when she’d get a text or a phone call and he could ask who it’s from.

After some time, Dot had gotten into the habit of telling him as she answered or even reading the text messages aloud to him. This was so ingrained in her, it was normal. To her, it reflected Aiden’s caring and love. Her Big Brother Bennett was the type that took her phone without asking, going through it with a scowl on his face until he liked that he saw that the only people talking to her were his brothers and members of the Clubhouse. There were absolutely no outsiders on her phone and frankly, Dot didn’t think anything of it. Her phone was filled with so many members of the Clubhouse, there was just no room for outsiders.

Benedict never outright asked but Dot suspected he looked into her phone after she had gone to sleep. It would have been easy for him not because he snuck into her room--not that it had no locks on it, but because there was a schedule kept for who Dot slept with every night now. Throughout the entire week, Aiden, Benedict, and Bennett traded places in staying the night in Dot’s room. Sometimes all four of them would sleep together. The tradition started when she hit sixteen; boy, that was a birthday to remember.

She was broken out of her thoughts when Aiden poured the cubed steak bits into a frying pan and it sizzled to life. She watched him stir for a little while before coming back to her original point.

“Is... there anything wrong with Dieter tutoring me?” she asked. Aiden stepped away from the pan and held a small cube of meat between his fingers and Dot opened her mouth for a taste. He fed her, chasing the little seasoned meat with a quick peck on the mouth before he went back to the frying pan.

“No. But we all know you’re fuckin’ him.” he grinned and heard Dot spit the food out of her mouth in surprise. “So you two don’t have ta pretend he’s comin’ over under the guise of tutorin’ ya.”

“I--wha--” Dot sat, flushed and pretty, and only a little mortified that he pegged that so quickly.

“It’s pretty obvious after your tutoring lessons.” He clarified. “You smell like him. He smells like you.”

“You’re... not mad?” Dot asked, sheepishly. Her game sat forgotten in her hands for a little while before a sad, YOU DIED, tone ended it for her.

“I would have been if he had gotten to ya first.”

Dot swallowed thickly. She didn’t need to ask what that meant. She knew what that meant and her thighs squeezed together kind of gave what Aiden had meant, away.

“Who... who else knows?”

“Everyone but Bennett.”

Dot laughed nervously. “That’s... probably for the best.”

Aiden laughed openly, “You got that fuckin’ right, princess.” But then he put the frying pan aside, not even close to finishing but he wanted to address Dot without burning all of their dinner.

Dot watched as Aiden pulled her chair away from the table with ease. It never ceased to amaze her with what her Big Brothers can do. Aiden crouched in front of her and even then, she was still eye level with his chest. He had to duck his head to look her in the face and when she finally was able to see his expression, it was stern. Serious.

“If I find out that you’re sleeping with anyone outside of this family and the Clubhouse, I will make sure that you will never touch another living soul except for myself, Benedict, and Bennett ever again.”

Dot’s eyes widened and she couldn’t help but shrink back into her seat. She was transported to that little child ages ago asking about her mommy and she nodded almost too eagerly, too fast to appease him.

“Y-Yes, Aiden.”

“Yes, what?”

“I... I won’t sleep--”

“You won’t fuck anyone.”

“I... I won’t f-fuck anyone outside of this f-family or the Clubhouse.”

Then, Aiden was appeased. He took his kiss, forced it upon Dot, not allowing her to shy away from him nor pull away in any way and she never did. She was just relieved that Aiden was happy with her again.

“Good girl. And you’re free to do whatever you want regarding school.” he stood up to resume dinner. “But you can’t leave this family.”

Dot shook her head. She wouldn’t dream of it!

Age 21

“I ...don’t need a huge party,” Dot’s laugh was a touch shy under all of the attention she has been getting today. It was her 21st birthday and unlike her 16th, or the day before it, it had been all what anyone’s been talking about! The actual day was spent sitting in the clubhouse since morning and people had been spilling in here and there all day. Right now, Bennett was high up on a ladder, pulling a banner across the clubhouse’s bar. Jimmy was on the other end, putting up the other side. The actual party didn’t start until the evening but the boys wanted to decorate for her. Of course, she was directed not to do a damn thing. So she... mingled.

“It’s your 21st, babe!” Jimmy shouted. “That’s fuckin’ cause for celebratin’ cause you’re finally legal!”

Dot pinched her lips together, her gaze shifting to the side. That was something of a joke, wasn’t it? Everyone knew she’s been enjoying Bloody Mary’s since she was sixteen years old. 

“Just let them have this,” Garrett said from one of the booths. He was seated across from Aiden, the both of them idly talking and discussing work only a moment ago. Dot bounded over to her beloved uncle, taking a seat on his lap where she greeted him with a kiss on the cheek. His arms easily wrapped around her slight figure, pulling her into a cross between a hug and a snuggle. Dot enjoyed the feeling of everyone’s hugs--they held her like she was going to disappear any second. She felt incredibly cherished and loved.

“Happy birthday to our little Outlaw Princess.” Garrett nosed against her short, curly hair done in a stylish faux hawk. Aiden’s gaze roamed along her features, a proud grin on his face. It was a long way from pigtails.

“You look good enough to eat,” he complimented. Dot laughed breathlessly, hiding her face in Garrett’s neck. 

Benedict entered the room with Malachai, the latter holding an odd assortment of decorations from the backroom storage.

“Ewan, are these your beer decorations?” he asked, turning to the giant Irishman laying on the ground. Benedict just silently stepped over him to head towards the two on the ladder to hand them streamers. 

Vaughn looked over the bar towards his twin then back at the decorations Malachai was holding up.

“Oi, weren’t those for St. Paddy’s?”

Ewan’s drunken hand came up to do some strange gesture that Vaughn took for an affirmative. “He says yeah. Kinna suiting since she’s legal now, right?” he asked, nodding his head towards Dot.

“It still amazes me you understand your brother when he’s like that,” Malachai stated in disbelief before following his gaze towards Dot. He gave her a soft smile and a wave in greeting, forgetting he had a comically giant beer emoji in his hand. “Happy birthday, little mocha!”

“That’s a big drink, Latte.” Dot grinned. “And thank you!”

Malachai blinked, looking up at his hand before laughing. “Figured I’d start early.” He excused himself to start on the decorations, finding all the things he could suitable for a birthday. Not just any birthday, either. 

Dot’s birthday. It was an event that celebrated the existence of someone very important and irreplaceable in their lives. It just seemed to get bigger every year. Not that Dot minded. It was sometimes flustering when she was the center of everyone’s attention, unknowingly the center of everyone’s lives as well. It didn’t matter that she didn’t know if June 25th was her real birthday or not, it was all she knew and family was all she was happy to know.

Age 29

“Bennett, Benji is hungry... can you get some baby food at the store?” Dot asked, pulling her cell from one ear to trade for the other. She held the same wailing baby in her arms, trying to shush him with a gentle humming and a comforting hand on his back. He had been teething lately and was a lot fussier than his siblings.

“Is that Benji? Fuck, he got his daddy’s lungs, huh?” Bennett was grinning proudly on the other end before adding, “I gotcha. Banana flavor or that baby oatmeal stuff?”

“The oatmeal is fine,” Dot smiled.

“Aight. I’m looking at it right now, got it. I’ll be home as soon as I can.”

“Thanks, Daddy.”

“Anything for you, mommy.”

Bennett hung up and Dot replaced her phone on the dresser before glancing down at Benny. The eldest brother was holding his quieter sister, Bernadette. Benny was Benedict’s child and like Benedict was a quiet little sarcastic bean. He was a older by the twin babies by a couple of years, and such a big help by playing man of the house whenever Aiden, Benedict, and Bennett were out of the house working. Bernie was snuggled in Benny’s arms watching Dot rock Benji while pacing the nursery with bright, clear eyes that reflected her own. Yet, they dimly lit with an eerie glow that could have only come from a Graves.

Benji wasn’t calming down so Dot hurried to the kitchen and grabbed what was hopefully a frozen teething ring. The gel was soft and malleable and thankfully cool enough for Benji to teeth on. Benji reacted right away to the sensational relief, ceasing his crying and fisting and grabbing at his ring and Dot’s hands. His little baby mouth worked as he stared up at Dot, looking every much as Bennett. It turned her heart over, cooing over her own baby.

The front door opened and Dot perked up, “Benn?”

“Nah,” Aiden called out. “It’s your better Daddy.”

Dot laughed, leading Benny and her children towards the living room to greet Aiden properly. He was locking the front door and turned to scoop both Dot and Benji in his arms. He nosed kisses all over Dot’s face, giving her back a comforting rub knowing she’s spent all day with fussing children.

“I bet you’re tired.”

Dot smiled, leaning into his affection with a nod. “A little. Benji’s been at it all day.”

“He really is his father’s son.” Aiden smirked, using a finger to gently rub under the child’s chin. Benji grasped onto that finger and put it into his mouth.

“Is that a tooth?” Aiden asked in slight wonder. His finger prodded around in there, feeling the beginnings of Benji’s tooth painfully making its way through gum. No wonder he’s been fussing. Aiden didn’t know a lot about babies and hadn’t been one for babies until Dot started having them. To say Dot had an “accident”, that Benny wasn’t planned, wasn’t the case at all. Benedict knew exactly what he was doing and blindsided all of them when he fully claimed her right from under everyone’s noses. And after Benny was born, Bennett was eager to jump on that train. Benji and Bernie were born soon after. It was planned on giving Dot a break but even right now, her middle was swollen with non other than Aiden’s pups in there. 

For a Valentine’s day gift, she had revealed to him that she was pregnant with his children. It certainly knocked him on his ass. 

His brothers having children before him wasn’t anything he was jealous about; he was the head of the household and put his family's happiness before his. He was content on waiting but apparently, nature had other plans. Since Dot’s first pregnancy, he was over the moon but since getting pregnant with his children, he had gotten even more possessive, even more cautious with Dot’s safety.

“How about you take a bath and I’ll watch the little tykes for a bit.”

Dot looked grateful as she started to hand Benji over but not before giving his wispy haired head a kiss. “That... sounds wonderful. I think I’ll do that.” she admitted then she repeated the same tender gesture with Benny and Bernie before allowing Aiden to take care of them. She knew Benny was going to be a big help to his Uncle and she’d leave the door open a little if she thought she was needed.

Once she was soaking in the bathroom, she heard the front door open again and Bennett call out for her. Another deep voice indicated Benedict was with him. She had to laugh to herself as she head Aiden yell at Bennett for yelling and Bennett yelling back at Aiden yelling. Her family was all home and safe under their roof. It warmed her more than the warm water she was engulfed in.

If anyone would have told her she would be here at 29 years old with six pups on her hands, well... she didn’t know what she would have said. Had it been anyone else’s children she had, she would have thought that sounded crazy. But with her family like this... it seemed like the natural thing to do.

She closed her eyes and sunk into the bubbly pink warm water, allowing it to relax her muscles and transport her onto a fluffy cloud. In all of her daydreaming and escapes, she found she never wandered too far from home. If she was on a cloud, then it was over the house. If she wanted to escape, then it was always to the Clubhouse. 

There had never been a family as close-knit, as supportive as her own family. As loving or caring or attentive. It was the only one she knew but it was the only one she needed. 

And as she listened to the sounds of her family from the comfort of her tub and through the door that was left open should she be needed--

She knew this to be true.

[fandomsandfeminism]

Closed Captions Available. Transcript Below. 

What IS a video game, how do we define them, and how do they overlap with things like puzzles and art? So Let's talk about Gone Home and Meow Wolf’s House of Eternal Return.

Hello, everyone! Sorry about the long delay between videos. The year has been a bit hectic. Today I want us to talk about something a little different than a  lot of my previous videos- video games. Specifically: what IS a video game, how do we define them, and how do they overlap with things like puzzles and art?

Even more specifically, we’re going to be talking about Gone Home and Meow Wolf’s House of Eternal Return.

So, a little background. I’m not a HUGE gamer. I tend to stick to Nintendo games, especially Pokemon and party games, games that are heavily story based, like Mass Effect, and weird little indie titles like Tacoma and Firewatch. So, I have a pretty...loose definition about what makes a video game a video game compared to more serious gamers. -

Let’s talk definitions real fast. In the broadest terms, a game is a structured form of play. It is a form of play that has some kind of rules to it. So while playing with your stuffed animals is just play (there’s no incorrect way to do it), things like hide and seek and checkers ARE games, as there are simple rules that govern HOW you play.

This can get tricky with things like puzzles, since there are...technically ways in which you could interact with a puzzle incorrectly. Throwing all the pieces of a jigsaw puzzle on the ground isn’t correct, but most of us wouldn’t consider it a GAME regardless. In a related point, sports are an even more structured form of games- they are games that involve competition and  physical activity (mostly? E-sports makes this iffy)

Video games are most broadly defined as GAMES that use electronic and visual interfaces to function. They can be on consoles, computers, arcade cabinets, even phones. -

Now, of course, not ALL electronic-visual interfaces are games. Microsoft Word isn’t a game. Facebook isn’t a game. Youtube isn’t a game. But, what about something like Gone Home? (Note, I’m gona talk about Gone Home for a little bit and I will do my best to describe it without many spoilers)

Released in 2013, and set in 1995, Gone Home is a first person exploration “game” (put a pin in the word game. We’ll come back to it.) Your character has been studying overseas for a year. While you were gone, your family has moved into a new house, one that your great uncle used to own before he died. When you arrive in the middle of the night, no one is home.

You then explore the house, reading journals and letters, looking at objects, trying to piece together what has happened. In some truly first rate environmental storytelling, you piece together what has happened in the year you were gone, and why your family isn’t home now.

-

Is this a game?

In a lot of ways, it doesn’t FEEL like a game. There’s no real puzzles to solve, no bad guys, no monsters, no platforming, or story decisions. You just walk around a house, look at stuff, and do some inferencing. You “finish” the game when you’ve been through the whole house and found the final “clues.” But there’s nothing to track your progress, no achievements or collectibles. The only thing forcing SOME linear structure on the experience is a few padlock codes you have to find to move deeper into the house.

So, is Gone Home structured enough for us to call it a video game? A video game rather than a puzzle or art or like...interactive story experience?

I think most people would say yes, though it’s kind of an odd artsy video game. The fact that you have to obey the programming, that you are interacting with the world in the ways the programmers allow is A structure, though a fairly weak one, compared to most video games, all things considered. You can’t like, leave the house, or fly, or start hunting ghosts. You can only “finish” the game by working through the whole story.

Most people would look at they keyboard or controller interface, and say “Oh, yeah, this is a video game.”  Wikipedia even refers to this as an “Exploration Video Game” and categorizes it as a subset of “Adventure Games” for whatever that’s worth.

-

However, this brings me to a weird point of comparison- Meow Wolf’s House of Eternal Return.

Background: Meow Wolf is an art collective of 200 artists based in Sante Fe, New Mexico. In 2016, with funding provided primarily by Game of Thrones Author GRR Martin, they created what is called The House of Eternal Return in Sante Fe. It’s a permanent art installation experience (put a pin in that description, we’ll come back to it.)

How it works is simple. After you pay (and definitely throw down the extra dollar for the color enhancing glasses) You watch a short video about how the people in the house you are about to enter disappeared. Very spooky. You go through a door, and there is a whole house inside this giant space.

Inside the house, things seem pretty normal at first. There is a story hidden in the objects though. Journals, emails, books, diaries, letters pinned to the fridge, videos on the TV all piece together what happened to this family and where they have gone. In as few spoilers as possible, the Grandfather, uncle, and young son of the family have been experimenting with portals to other dimensions and stuff. It goes poorly. The full story is much more complicated and interesting, but it’s more fun to discover it on your own.

As you move through the house, there are places where you seemingly can “enter” these portals. A secret garden under the stairs, a passage through the fire place, a hallway inside the fridge, a slide out of the washer. Beyond the house is a twisting, trippy maze of electronic art that you can spend hours in (this is where those color enhancing glasses are really worth it.)

-

So, when my husband and I went into The House of Eternal Return, we quickly thought “Holy crumbs, this is like...a real life version of Gone Home.” The environmental storytelling, piecing together the events of a missing family by finding clues left in the house, the very loose and mostly nonlinear structure of how you can discover the clues.  All of it.

So….if Gone Home is a video game….is Meow Wolf’s House of Eternal Return….a game? Like...chess or hide and seek or D&D?

This is where it breaks down for me a little. My first instinct is to call this installation art, but its similarities to Gone Home are really strong.

I would argue that Meow Wolf has far less structure on this experience here though. While ALL you can really do in Gone Home is move around the space to discover the story because of the programming, in Meow Wolf, discovering the story is far more optional. Many of the other people there, especially the ones with small children, seemed to move through the house itself very quickly, not stopping and inspecting letters and emails and journals, so they and their children could play in the electronic “portals” section (which is super fun.) But they didn’t spend any time figuring out the story the way that you would in Gone Home.

Is it a game, but the game aspect is optional? Is it a game, and those people and their 3 year olds are just playing it wrong? Is it not a game at all, but just weird, trippy art with a loose narrative so all the pieces fit together?

And does our evaluation of Meow Wolf make us re-evaluate how we feel about Gone Home, and other games like it (such as Tacoma, Firewatch, and the Stanley Parable?) Maybe? I don’t particularly have an answer to that, so I’m actually excited to hear all of yalls thoughts down in the comments!

Thanks for listening to this queer millennial feminist rant about things I like for a few minutes. If you want to be notified when I make more of these, you know the drill, subscribe! And let me know what you think about this question of games and video games vs art and experiences down in the comments

[endlessarchite]

Our Room For Real Simple’s Idea House

Earlier this month we took the whole family (dog included!) up to Brooklyn for a few days to put together the space we’ve be designing for this year’s Real Simple Idea House over the past five or so months.

I realize there’s a lot to unpack in that sentence (especially if you missed our podcast episode or Instagram stories about it) so we’ll catch you up right here and show you the *almost* finished space. And explain what’s still left to be done before their big photoshoot for the magazine and tell you about how some last-minute curveballs actually made the room better. And tell you what they do with everything in the house once the idea home is all said & done. That’s a lot of ands, so buckle up because we have a lot to tell ya.

side table | daybed | wallpaper | art | lamp | pillows | quilt | rug | octopus

This is the second year that Real Simple magazine has taken over a home in Brooklyn, assigned each room to a different “designer” (there’s typically a mix of certified interior designers & bloggers & design TV personalities, etc) and then they photograph the finished spaces for their magazine (this one will featured be in their October issue). Here’s last year’s house which we loved following along (especially since our friends Jenny Komenda & Sabrina Soto each got a room in that house.

We were completely surprised & extremely thrilled when they asked us if we wanted to do a room this year – and they assigned us the “guest room/playroom” – which felt just perfect for us (we love multi-function rooms, especially when it involves balancing the needs of both grown-ups and kids… even if the family is imaginary in this case).

light | chairs | table | beanbag | pouf | dresser | shelves | rug | wallpaper

So since March we’ve worked remotely with the Real Simple team to make this room happen. They sent us pictures (like the one below) and measurements and floor plans, we sent back design plans and a mood board and a floor plan and links to each product selection. Everything had to be approved by their editors (they didn’t want a certain space to feel wildly incongruous with any of the other rooms and they also didn’t want duplicate or too-similar items or ideas from space to space) so it was a fascinating puzzle to put together from afar.

Once everything that we ordered had arrived in the room, we spent one marathon day putting things in place and navigating some 11th hour challenges that are inevitable in these types of projects. We didn’t get EVERYTHING completed (most notably our long white curtains were back-ordered so they’ll go up later – which will completely soften that industrial back wall so it looks a lot more like the rest of the room) but it’s around 95% done in these pictures, and the Real Simple crew will get it to full 100% before their photographer comes in.

And yes, those are our son’s feet poking out in the picture above and our daughter is laying on the bed under a blanket. We decided to make this a big family trip – mostly because we wanted to see relatives and friends in the NYC/NJ area while we were up there, but also because we thought it’d be fun for our kids to see us tackle this firsthand. It was basically one big “take your kids to work” adventure, and they both got into it and started suggesting what they’d like (our daughter even sketched out some ideas on her little magnetic drawing tablet), and they both served as “quality control” to make sure the beanbag was comfy and the rug was soft enough to roll on. In short: it was a ton of fun to have them there.

In any of these combo rooms, there can definitely be a range of percentages when it comes to the balance. For example, sometimes people have a playroom with a futon in it and it’s 95% playroom, and 5% guest room (that futon is literally the only guest room-ish thing about it, and it’s used very rarely).

mirror | side table | daybed | wallpaper | art | lamp | poufs | quilt | rug | octopus

In this case, the brief from Real Simple was to make it look mostly like a guest room, so any grown up would walk in and love it and want to sleep there, but to also work in some kids stuff – both hidden (in storage bins, baskets, behind closed drawers, etc) and on display (on open shelves, in lidless baskets, etc). So I’d call this room’s particular percentage 75% guest room & 25% playroom. When you’re tackling a multi-use space like this, do whatever percentage actually works functionally and feels right for your home (remember, this is an imaginary family).

As for pulling this room’s design together, I’ve been obsessed with this daybed for years, so it was the launch point for the whole room as soon as Real Simple said that a single bed was their preference for the space. Picture me punching the air and screaming “I GET TO USE MY DREAM DAYBED!!!!”

light | baskets | daybed | wallpaper | art | poufs | pillows | quilt | rug | chair | table

Daybeds are also great because they can function as both a bed (when it’s in guest room mode) and a couch (when it’s in playroom mode). We also balanced some other needs for both functions with some other furniture choices. A nice big side table with books & mags for a guest along with a reading lamp checks the guest room box, while some large lidded storage baskets on the other side of the bed checked the playroom box (see photo above).

The wallpaper was also sort of a happy accident too. The original wallpaper we had suggested was also very tone-on-tone and I had picked it because I LOVED how playful the pattern was (look how cute!). Since it was still an extremely neutral color palette, but the pattern was fun for kids, I thought it would be perfect for this dual space, but the editors worried it might skew too playroom so we selected this more affordable palm one instead. We love how the room turned out, but I still love the original wallpaper pick too – so if you’re creating a playroom or a kids room, I think it would be so much fun (heck, as a grown woman I’d like it in my space too).

mirror | daybed | wallpaper | art | lamp | pillows | quilt | octopus

I am just in love with that octopus, as were the kids. What is it about a big stuffed animal with a slightly dopey expression that steals your heart? Also, some of our pillow fills hadn’t arrived yet so that droopy bolster pillow below is stuffed with spare bath towels. THE MAGIC OF PHOTO STYLING, EVERYBODY! Also this large print from Juniper Print Shop was such a perfect solution (all the right colors, looked great with the wallpaper, and feels like a kid would love staring at it just as much as a grown up – in fact our kids asked us whose house it was – ha!).

daybed | wallpaper | art | pillows | quilt

Another playroom “must” for us is a table or desk that can serve as a craft/art/game space. This room had very little wall space (aside from the bed wall, it was pretty much all windows, closets, and doors) so we knew a floating desk or table was our best bet. A round table is always great in these scenarios and we knew our drop-leaf table would earn bonus points because the leaves can be folded down to make it more compact if needed. Plus there’s room for two blue-gray chairs that can be moved to any of the four sides of the table. Flexible furniture is always a win.

So we just hoped when we showed up that we could make it work, and we love how it looks by the windows. Imagine coloring or doing a puzzle there while looking outside on a gorgeous sunny day. Please also imagine my double wide white flowy curtains because all of that industrial black frame that you see below will be muuuuuch softer once they’re hung. I can’t wait to see the photos from the magazine because it’s going to be yet another demonstration about how curtains completely change a room. Stay tuned…

wallpaper | rug | chairs | table | beanbag

This room is also great because it had two matching closets along the wall to the right of the window above. Why is that great? Well, it was a no-brainer to make one useful for guests (their clothes, a suitcase, etc) and use the other one for kids storage (games, books, art supplies, etc). The guest closet is being outfitted by professional organizers (they’re doing pretty much every other closet in the house too, as well as the pantry) so our task was to tackle the kids closet, which we wanted to make open and accessible – and cute enough to be in plain view 24/7… so our first step was to remove the sliding doors.

I realize that “doors off” approach could sound counterintuitive since the fastest way to clean up for guests is to just throw stuff behind closed doors, but we’ve found that can also breed Monica closets (especially when toys are involved). Plus this is an idea house… how fun would this room be if we just had kids stuff hiding behind a closed door? So instead, we got to create this little nook full of functional storage that looks good too (the stenciled dresser is such a great piece that’s easy on the eyes yet super smart for storing things out of sight).

chairs | table | beanbag | dresser | shelves | wallpaper

So at least consider creating some storage like this in your home, which can fend off the urge to shove everything into a closet, and instead create a manageable and simple system for things (both concealed and out in the open) so that you love looking at it. When everything has a legit spot to go back to after it’s done being played with, it really isn’t very hard to maintain (and even kids can clean up on autopilot).

Another example of this concept is the back wall of our bonus room in our house, where we have concealed cabinets for storing games and art supplies and puzzles and even bonus guest blankets and pillows for when people sleep in there, but also has fun open shelving so you walk in and see some playful and very functional items right out in the open.

But back to the idea room. These shelves were actually our biggest hiccup in the plan, and they’re what ended up taking up the biggest chunk of time during our install day. Our original shelves were backordered, but we didn’t find that out with enough time to order new ones.

Originally we were going to do colorful shelves full of books & toys, but physically being in the room that day made it clear that this wall needed some wood tones to balance out the daybed and the other lovely wood tones on the other side of the space.

HOORAY FOR THE COLORFUL SHELF DELAY! It truly was the best hiccup we could have asked for, because these wood shelves made the room turn out so much better than it would have if those hadn’t been backordered. After we arrived, we immediately began hunting for options that were in stock and available that day, and landed on these LISABO shelves from Ikea. And there was an Ikea like 15 minutes from the house in Brooklyn so we were able to have them in hand by lunchtime!

We filmed a whole segment with Real Simple about hanging the shelves (who knows if we were coherent enough for them to use it but we’ll share it if/when it comes out), and you can see that the more neutral shelves still ended up looking colorful and fun, thanks to the addition of some toys and books and blocks.

And I know the idea of color-coding your shelves can be eye-roll inducing, but it ended up being great for this tiny space. I wasn’t super Type-A about it. I just quickly tossed things together mostly by color… but there’s yellow & pink in that top right corner and orange & hot pink in the top left, so it’s not anything that took too long or was overwrought.

In fact it took us about 1.5 hours to hang these shelves (two words: cinderblock walls) but it took me like 9 minutes to style them. Not kidding. And the cool thing is that as people use items and kids grow and change, shelves evolve too. Open shelves aren’t a museum. Nobody has to painstakingly put things back the same way each time. It’s actually fun to try different groupings, and this rainbow-ish approach made our eyes happy, but the shelves in our bonus room have changed so much over the years. It’s all gonna be ok. Don’t stress. Just put things you like to look at on open shelves and hide stuff you don’t wanna see in concealed cabinets or drawers or baskets or bins. Truly, it’s a simple system that you can actually can keep up with.

A note on the shelves themselves, because they exceeded our expectations by like a million. I had never personally heard of or seen these shelves before (they said “new” on the Ikea site when John dug them up on his phone in that panicked we-have-to-find-something-today search) but I’m SUPER impressed by them. They’re very solid, relatively easy to hang (would’ve taken about 10 mins per shelf if we didn’t have cinderblock walls which required a masonry bit), and the wood tone is perfect. Blonde and casual. Smooth & expensive looking. But not.

And since we know keeping picture-perfect shelves isn’t realistic for all of your toys, we always like to incorporate some closed toy storage too – like the chest of drawers underneath the shelves and those large floor baskets across the room that we mentioned earlier.

Oh, I also think we need to buy a beanbag now. Our kids were obsessed with this one. Like the chairs were chumps. They both wanted to be ON THE BEANBAG AT ALL TIMES.

light | chairs | table | beanbag | pouf | dresser | shelves | rug | wallpaper

I’m so excited to see the finished pictures of this space in Real Simple’s October issue. Plus there are so many other amazing spaces that we already got to see in various states of near-completion, like Mandi’s master bedroom and Shavonda & Carmeon’s office. Speaking of which, we overlapped Shavonda and Carmeon‘s visit and it was SO. MUCH. FUN. to finally meet them both in person. We’ve been IG buddies for ages (you might remember that Shavonda talked to us about downsizing on our podcast last year) so hanging with them was the perfect end to an extremely fun day.

Plus Shavonda got this sweet picture of me and John where we look like we’re wearing one large black t-shirt with three arm-holes. If that ain’t marriage, I don’t know what is.

Oh, and as for what happens to all of this stuff and this house when the photos are taken for Real Simple’s October issue… well, the house gets sold and the furniture gets auctioned off for a good cause! I love that nothing goes to waste, and in creating such a fun space, everything ends up benefiting people who need a helping hand. They haven’t picked this year’s charity yet, but when they do I’ll let you know.

So thanks, Real Simple! It was Real Fun ;) #MomJokes4Days

P.S. If you’d like to see other rooms we’ve designed for a good cause, we loved doing this very special room makeover for a local family, this teacher’s lounge for a local school, and these three bedroom makeovers for three amazing kids.

*This post contains affiliate links

The post Our Room For Real Simple’s Idea House appeared first on Young House Love.

Our Room For Real Simple’s Idea House published first on https://bakerskitchenslimited.tumblr.com/

[additionallysad]

Our Room For Real Simple’s Idea House https://ift.tt/2OteqeE

Earlier this month we took the whole family (dog included!) up to Brooklyn for a few days to put together the space we’ve be designing for this year’s Real Simple Idea House over the past five or so months.

I realize there’s a lot to unpack in that sentence (especially if you missed our podcast episode or Instagram stories about it) so we’ll catch you up right here and show you the *almost* finished space. And explain what’s still left to be done before their big photoshoot for the magazine and tell you about how some last-minute curveballs actually made the room better. And tell you what they do with everything in the house once the idea home is all said & done. That’s a lot of ands, so buckle up because we have a lot to tell ya.

side table | daybed | wallpaper | art | lamp | pillows | quilt | rug | octopus

This is the second year that Real Simple magazine has taken over a home in Brooklyn, assigned each room to a different “designer” (there’s typically a mix of certified interior designers & bloggers & design TV personalities, etc) and then they photograph the finished spaces for their magazine (this one will featured be in their October issue). Here’s last year’s house which we loved following along (especially since our friends Jenny Komenda & Sabrina Soto each got a room in that house.

We were completely surprised & extremely thrilled when they asked us if we wanted to do a room this year – and they assigned us the “guest room/playroom” – which felt just perfect for us (we love multi-function rooms, especially when it involves balancing the needs of both grown-ups and kids… even if the family is imaginary in this case).

light | chairs | table | beanbag | pouf | dresser | shelves | rug | wallpaper

So since March we’ve worked remotely with the Real Simple team to make this room happen. They sent us pictures (like the one below) and measurements and floor plans, we sent back design plans and a mood board and a floor plan and links to each product selection. Everything had to be approved by their editors (they didn’t want a certain space to feel wildly incongruous with any of the other rooms and they also didn’t want duplicate or too-similar items or ideas from space to space) so it was a fascinating puzzle to put together from afar.

Once everything that we ordered had arrived in the room, we spent one marathon day putting things in place and navigating some 11th hour challenges that are inevitable in these types of projects. We didn’t get EVERYTHING completed (most notably our long white curtains were back-ordered so they’ll go up later – which will completely soften that industrial back wall so it looks a lot more like the rest of the room) but it’s around 95% done in these pictures, and the Real Simple crew will get it to full 100% before their photographer comes in.

And yes, those are our son’s feet poking out in the picture above and our daughter is laying on the bed under a blanket. We decided to make this a big family trip – mostly because we wanted to see relatives and friends in the NYC/NJ area while we were up there, but also because we thought it’d be fun for our kids to see us tackle this firsthand. It was basically one big “take your kids to work” adventure, and they both got into it and started suggesting what they’d like (our daughter even sketched out some ideas on her little magnetic drawing tablet), and they both served as “quality control” to make sure the beanbag was comfy and the rug was soft enough to roll on. In short: it was a ton of fun to have them there.

In any of these combo rooms, there can definitely be a range of percentages when it comes to the balance. For example, sometimes people have a playroom with a futon in it and it’s 95% playroom, and 5% guest room (that futon is literally the only guest room-ish thing about it, and it’s used very rarely).

mirror | side table | daybed | wallpaper | art | lamp | poufs | quilt | rug | octopus

In this case, the brief from Real Simple was to make it look mostly like a guest room, so any grown up would walk in and love it and want to sleep there, but to also work in some kids stuff – both hidden (in storage bins, baskets, behind closed drawers, etc) and on display (on open shelves, in lidless baskets, etc). So I’d call this room’s particular percentage 75% guest room & 25% playroom. When you’re tackling a multi-use space like this, do whatever percentage actually works functionally and feels right for your home (remember, this is an imaginary family).

As for pulling this room’s design together, I’ve been obsessed with this daybed for years, so it was the launch point for the whole room as soon as Real Simple said that a single bed was their preference for the space. Picture me punching the air and screaming “I GET TO USE MY DREAM DAYBED!!!!”

light | baskets | daybed | wallpaper | art | poufs | pillows | quilt | rug | chair | table

Daybeds are also great because they can function as both a bed (when it’s in guest room mode) and a couch (when it’s in playroom mode). We also balanced some other needs for both functions with some other furniture choices. A nice big side table with books & mags for a guest along with a reading lamp checks the guest room box, while some large lidded storage baskets on the other side of the bed checked the playroom box (see photo above).

The wallpaper was also sort of a happy accident too. The original wallpaper we had suggested was also very tone-on-tone and I had picked it because I LOVED how playful the pattern was (look how cute!). Since it was still an extremely neutral color palette, but the pattern was fun for kids, I thought it would be perfect for this dual space, but the editors worried it might skew too playroom so we selected this more affordable palm one instead. We love how the room turned out, but I still love the original wallpaper pick too – so if you’re creating a playroom or a kids room, I think it would be so much fun (heck, as a grown woman I’d like it in my space too).

mirror | daybed | wallpaper | art | lamp | pillows | quilt | octopus

I am just in love with that octopus, as were the kids. What is it about a big stuffed animal with a slightly dopey expression that steals your heart? Also, some of our pillow fills hadn’t arrived yet so that droopy bolster pillow below is stuffed with spare bath towels. THE MAGIC OF PHOTO STYLING, EVERYBODY! Also this large print from Juniper Print Shop was such a perfect solution (all the right colors, looked great with the wallpaper, and feels like a kid would love staring at it just as much as a grown up – in fact our kids asked us whose house it was – ha!).

daybed | wallpaper | art | pillows | quilt

Another playroom “must” for us is a table or desk that can serve as a craft/art/game space. This room had very little wall space (aside from the bed wall, it was pretty much all windows, closets, and doors) so we knew a floating desk or table was our best bet. A round table is always great in these scenarios and we knew our drop-leaf table would earn bonus points because the leaves can be folded down to make it more compact if needed. Plus there’s room for two blue-gray chairs that can be moved to any of the four sides of the table. Flexible furniture is always a win.

So we just hoped when we showed up that we could make it work, and we love how it looks by the windows. Imagine coloring or doing a puzzle there while looking outside on a gorgeous sunny day. Please also imagine my double wide white flowy curtains because all of that industrial black frame that you see below will be muuuuuch softer once they’re hung. I can’t wait to see the photos from the magazine because it’s going to be yet another demonstration about how curtains completely change a room. Stay tuned…

wallpaper | rug | chairs | table | beanbag

This room is also great because it had two matching closets along the wall to the right of the window above. Why is that great? Well, it was a no-brainer to make one useful for guests (their clothes, a suitcase, etc) and use the other one for kids storage (games, books, art supplies, etc). The guest closet is being outfitted by professional organizers (they’re doing pretty much every other closet in the house too, as well as the pantry) so our task was to tackle the kids closet, which we wanted to make open and accessible – and cute enough to be in plain view 24/7… so our first step was to remove the sliding doors.

I realize that “doors off” approach could sound counterintuitive since the fastest way to clean up for guests is to just throw stuff behind closed doors, but we’ve found that can also breed Monica closets (especially when toys are involved). Plus this is an idea house… how fun would this room be if we just had kids stuff hiding behind a closed door? So instead, we got to create this little nook full of functional storage that looks good too (the stenciled dresser is such a great piece that’s easy on the eyes yet super smart for storing things out of sight).

chairs | table | beanbag | dresser | shelves | wallpaper

So at least consider creating some storage like this in your home, which can fend off the urge to shove everything into a closet, and instead create a manageable and simple system for things (both concealed and out in the open) so that you love looking at it. When everything has a legit spot to go back to after it’s done being played with, it really isn’t very hard to maintain (and even kids can clean up on autopilot).

Another example of this concept is the back wall of our bonus room in our house, where we have concealed cabinets for storing games and art supplies and puzzles and even bonus guest blankets and pillows for when people sleep in there, but also has fun open shelving so you walk in and see some playful and very functional items right out in the open.

But back to the idea room. These shelves were actually our biggest hiccup in the plan, and they’re what ended up taking up the biggest chunk of time during our install day. Our original shelves were backordered, but we didn’t find that out with enough time to order new ones.

Originally we were going to do colorful shelves full of books & toys, but physically being in the room that day made it clear that this wall needed some wood tones to balance out the daybed and the other lovely wood tones on the other side of the space.

HOORAY FOR THE COLORFUL SHELF DELAY! It truly was the best hiccup we could have asked for, because these wood shelves made the room turn out so much better than it would have if those hadn’t been backordered. After we arrived, we immediately began hunting for options that were in stock and available that day, and landed on these LISABO shelves from Ikea. And there was an Ikea like 15 minutes from the house in Brooklyn so we were able to have them in hand by lunchtime!

We filmed a whole segment with Real Simple about hanging the shelves (who knows if we were coherent enough for them to use it but we’ll share it if/when it comes out), and you can see that the more neutral shelves still ended up looking colorful and fun, thanks to the addition of some toys and books and blocks.

And I know the idea of color-coding your shelves can be eye-roll inducing, but it ended up being great for this tiny space. I wasn’t super Type-A about it. I just quickly tossed things together mostly by color… but there’s yellow & pink in that top right corner and orange & hot pink in the top left, so it’s not anything that took too long or was overwrought.

In fact it took us about 1.5 hours to hang these shelves (two words: cinderblock walls) but it took me like 9 minutes to style them. Not kidding. And the cool thing is that as people use items and kids grow and change, shelves evolve too. Open shelves aren’t a museum. Nobody has to painstakingly put things back the same way each time. It’s actually fun to try different groupings, and this rainbow-ish approach made our eyes happy, but the shelves in our bonus room have changed so much over the years. It’s all gonna be ok. Don’t stress. Just put things you like to look at on open shelves and hide stuff you don’t wanna see in concealed cabinets or drawers or baskets or bins. Truly, it’s a simple system that you can actually can keep up with.

A note on the shelves themselves, because they exceeded our expectations by like a million. I had never personally heard of or seen these shelves before (they said “new” on the Ikea site when John dug them up on his phone in that panicked we-have-to-find-something-today search) but I’m SUPER impressed by them. They’re very solid, relatively easy to hang (would’ve taken about 10 mins per shelf if we didn’t have cinderblock walls which required a masonry bit), and the wood tone is perfect. Blonde and casual. Smooth & expensive looking. But not.

And since we know keeping picture-perfect shelves isn’t realistic for all of your toys, we always like to incorporate some closed toy storage too – like the chest of drawers underneath the shelves and those large floor baskets across the room that we mentioned earlier.

Oh, I also think we need to buy a beanbag now. Our kids were obsessed with this one. Like the chairs were chumps. They both wanted to be ON THE BEANBAG AT ALL TIMES.

light | chairs | table | beanbag | pouf | dresser | shelves | rug | wallpaper

I’m so excited to see the finished pictures of this space in Real Simple’s October issue. Plus there are so many other amazing spaces that we already got to see in various states of near-completion, like Mandi’s master bedroom and Shavonda & Carmeon’s office. Speaking of which, we overlapped Shavonda and Carmeon‘s visit and it was SO. MUCH. FUN. to finally meet them both in person. We’ve been IG buddies for ages (you might remember that Shavonda talked to us about downsizing on our podcast last year) so hanging with them was the perfect end to an extremely fun day.

Plus Shavonda got this sweet picture of me and John where we look like we’re wearing one large black t-shirt with three arm-holes. If that ain’t marriage, I don’t know what is.

Oh, and as for what happens to all of this stuff and this house when the photos are taken for Real Simple’s October issue… well, the house gets sold and the furniture gets auctioned off for a good cause! I love that nothing goes to waste, and in creating such a fun space, everything ends up benefiting people who need a helping hand. They haven’t picked this year’s charity yet, but when they do I’ll let you know.

So thanks, Real Simple! It was Real Fun ;) #MomJokes4Days

P.S. If you’d like to see other rooms we’ve designed for a good cause, we loved doing this very special room makeover for a local family, this teacher’s lounge for a local school, and these three bedroom makeovers for three amazing kids.

*This post contains affiliate links

The post Our Room For Real Simple’s Idea House appeared first on Young House Love.

[truereviewpage]

Our Room For Real Simple’s Idea House

Earlier this month we took the whole family (dog included!) up to Brooklyn for a few days to put together the space we’ve be designing for this year’s Real Simple Idea House over the past five or so months.

I realize there’s a lot to unpack in that sentence (especially if you missed our podcast episode or Instagram stories about it) so we’ll catch you up right here and show you the *almost* finished space. And explain what’s still left to be done before their big photoshoot for the magazine and tell you about how some last-minute curveballs actually made the room better. And tell you what they do with everything in the house once the idea home is all said & done. That’s a lot of ands, so buckle up because we have a lot to tell ya.

side table | daybed | wallpaper | art | lamp | pillows | quilt | rug | octopus

This is the second year that Real Simple magazine has taken over a home in Brooklyn, assigned each room to a different “designer” (there’s typically a mix of certified interior designers & bloggers & design TV personalities, etc) and then they photograph the finished spaces for their magazine (this one will featured be in their October issue). Here’s last year’s house which we loved following along (especially since our friends Jenny Komenda & Sabrina Soto each got a room in that house.

We were completely surprised & extremely thrilled when they asked us if we wanted to do a room this year – and they assigned us the “guest room/playroom” – which felt just perfect for us (we love multi-function rooms, especially when it involves balancing the needs of both grown-ups and kids… even if the family is imaginary in this case).

light | chairs | table | beanbag | pouf | dresser | shelves | rug | wallpaper

So since March we’ve worked remotely with the Real Simple team to make this room happen. They sent us pictures (like the one below) and measurements and floor plans, we sent back design plans and a mood board and a floor plan and links to each product selection. Everything had to be approved by their editors (they didn’t want a certain space to feel wildly incongruous with any of the other rooms and they also didn’t want duplicate or too-similar items or ideas from space to space) so it was a fascinating puzzle to put together from afar.

Once everything that we ordered had arrived in the room, we spent one marathon day putting things in place and navigating some 11th hour challenges that are inevitable in these types of projects. We didn’t get EVERYTHING completed (most notably our long white curtains were back-ordered so they’ll go up later – which will completely soften that industrial back wall so it looks a lot more like the rest of the room) but it’s around 95% done in these pictures, and the Real Simple crew will get it to full 100% before their photographer comes in.

And yes, those are our son’s feet poking out in the picture above and our daughter is laying on the bed under a blanket. We decided to make this a big family trip – mostly because we wanted to see relatives and friends in the NYC/NJ area while we were up there, but also because we thought it’d be fun for our kids to see us tackle this firsthand. It was basically one big “take your kids to work” adventure, and they both got into it and started suggesting what they’d like (our daughter even sketched out some ideas on her little magnetic drawing tablet), and they both served as “quality control” to make sure the beanbag was comfy and the rug was soft enough to roll on. In short: it was a ton of fun to have them there.

In any of these combo rooms, there can definitely be a range of percentages when it comes to the balance. For example, sometimes people have a playroom with a futon in it and it’s 95% playroom, and 5% guest room (that futon is literally the only guest room-ish thing about it, and it’s used very rarely).

mirror | side table | daybed | wallpaper | art | lamp | poufs | quilt | rug | octopus

In this case, the brief from Real Simple was to make it look mostly like a guest room, so any grown up would walk in and love it and want to sleep there, but to also work in some kids stuff – both hidden (in storage bins, baskets, behind closed drawers, etc) and on display (on open shelves, in lidless baskets, etc). So I’d call this room’s particular percentage 75% guest room & 25% playroom. When you’re tackling a multi-use space like this, do whatever percentage actually works functionally and feels right for your home (remember, this is an imaginary family).

As for pulling this room’s design together, I’ve been obsessed with this daybed for years, so it was the launch point for the whole room as soon as Real Simple said that a single bed was their preference for the space. Picture me punching the air and screaming “I GET TO USE MY DREAM DAYBED!!!!”

light | baskets | daybed | wallpaper | art | poufs | pillows | quilt | rug | chair | table

Daybeds are also great because they can function as both a bed (when it’s in guest room mode) and a couch (when it’s in playroom mode). We also balanced some other needs for both functions with some other furniture choices. A nice big side table with books & mags for a guest along with a reading lamp checks the guest room box, while some large lidded storage baskets on the other side of the bed checked the playroom box (see photo above).

The wallpaper was also sort of a happy accident too. The original wallpaper we had suggested was also very tone-on-tone and I had picked it because I LOVED how playful the pattern was (look how cute!). Since it was still an extremely neutral color palette, but the pattern was fun for kids, I thought it would be perfect for this dual space, but the editors worried it might skew too playroom so we selected this more affordable palm one instead. We love how the room turned out, but I still love the original wallpaper pick too – so if you’re creating a playroom or a kids room, I think it would be so much fun (heck, as a grown woman I’d like it in my space too).

mirror | daybed | wallpaper | art | lamp | pillows | quilt | octopus

I am just in love with that octopus, as were the kids. What is it about a big stuffed animal with a slightly dopey expression that steals your heart? Also, some of our pillow fills hadn’t arrived yet so that droopy bolster pillow below is stuffed with spare bath towels. THE MAGIC OF PHOTO STYLING, EVERYBODY! Also this large print from Juniper Print Shop was such a perfect solution (all the right colors, looked great with the wallpaper, and feels like a kid would love staring at it just as much as a grown up – in fact our kids asked us whose house it was – ha!).

daybed | wallpaper | art | pillows | quilt

Another playroom “must” for us is a table or desk that can serve as a craft/art/game space. This room had very little wall space (aside from the bed wall, it was pretty much all windows, closets, and doors) so we knew a floating desk or table was our best bet. A round table is always great in these scenarios and we knew our drop-leaf table would earn bonus points because the leaves can be folded down to make it more compact if needed. Plus there’s room for two blue-gray chairs that can be moved to any of the four sides of the table. Flexible furniture is always a win.

So we just hoped when we showed up that we could make it work, and we love how it looks by the windows. Imagine coloring or doing a puzzle there while looking outside on a gorgeous sunny day. Please also imagine my double wide white flowy curtains because all of that industrial black frame that you see below will be muuuuuch softer once they’re hung. I can’t wait to see the photos from the magazine because it’s going to be yet another demonstration about how curtains completely change a room. Stay tuned…

wallpaper | rug | chairs | table | beanbag

This room is also great because it had two matching closets along the wall to the right of the window above. Why is that great? Well, it was a no-brainer to make one useful for guests (their clothes, a suitcase, etc) and use the other one for kids storage (games, books, art supplies, etc). The guest closet is being outfitted by professional organizers (they’re doing pretty much every other closet in the house too, as well as the pantry) so our task was to tackle the kids closet, which we wanted to make open and accessible – and cute enough to be in plain view 24/7… so our first step was to remove the sliding doors.

I realize that “doors off” approach could sound counterintuitive since the fastest way to clean up for guests is to just throw stuff behind closed doors, but we’ve found that can also breed Monica closets (especially when toys are involved). Plus this is an idea house… how fun would this room be if we just had kids stuff hiding behind a closed door? So instead, we got to create this little nook full of functional storage that looks good too (the stenciled dresser is such a great piece that’s easy on the eyes yet super smart for storing things out of sight).

chairs | table | beanbag | dresser | shelves | wallpaper

So at least consider creating some storage like this in your home, which can fend off the urge to shove everything into a closet, and instead create a manageable and simple system for things (both concealed and out in the open) so that you love looking at it. When everything has a legit spot to go back to after it’s done being played with, it really isn’t very hard to maintain (and even kids can clean up on autopilot).

Another example of this concept is the back wall of our bonus room in our house, where we have concealed cabinets for storing games and art supplies and puzzles and even bonus guest blankets and pillows for when people sleep in there, but also has fun open shelving so you walk in and see some playful and very functional items right out in the open.

But back to the idea room. These shelves were actually our biggest hiccup in the plan, and they’re what ended up taking up the biggest chunk of time during our install day. Our original shelves were backordered, but we didn’t find that out with enough time to order new ones.

Originally we were going to do colorful shelves full of books & toys, but physically being in the room that day made it clear that this wall needed some wood tones to balance out the daybed and the other lovely wood tones on the other side of the space.

HOORAY FOR THE COLORFUL SHELF DELAY! It truly was the best hiccup we could have asked for, because these wood shelves made the room turn out so much better than it would have if those hadn’t been backordered. After we arrived, we immediately began hunting for options that were in stock and available that day, and landed on these LISABO shelves from Ikea. And there was an Ikea like 15 minutes from the house in Brooklyn so we were able to have them in hand by lunchtime!

We filmed a whole segment with Real Simple about hanging the shelves (who knows if we were coherent enough for them to use it but we’ll share it if/when it comes out), and you can see that the more neutral shelves still ended up looking colorful and fun, thanks to the addition of some toys and books and blocks.

And I know the idea of color-coding your shelves can be eye-roll inducing, but it ended up being great for this tiny space. I wasn’t super Type-A about it. I just quickly tossed things together mostly by color… but there’s yellow & pink in that top right corner and orange & hot pink in the top left, so it’s not anything that took too long or was overwrought.

In fact it took us about 1.5 hours to hang these shelves (two words: cinderblock walls) but it took me like 9 minutes to style them. Not kidding. And the cool thing is that as people use items and kids grow and change, shelves evolve too. Open shelves aren’t a museum. Nobody has to painstakingly put things back the same way each time. It’s actually fun to try different groupings, and this rainbow-ish approach made our eyes happy, but the shelves in our bonus room have changed so much over the years. It’s all gonna be ok. Don’t stress. Just put things you like to look at on open shelves and hide stuff you don’t wanna see in concealed cabinets or drawers or baskets or bins. Truly, it’s a simple system that you can actually can keep up with.

A note on the shelves themselves, because they exceeded our expectations by like a million. I had never personally heard of or seen these shelves before (they said “new” on the Ikea site when John dug them up on his phone in that panicked we-have-to-find-something-today search) but I’m SUPER impressed by them. They’re very solid, relatively easy to hang (would’ve taken about 10 mins per shelf if we didn’t have cinderblock walls which required a masonry bit), and the wood tone is perfect. Blonde and casual. Smooth & expensive looking. But not.

And since we know keeping picture-perfect shelves isn’t realistic for all of your toys, we always like to incorporate some closed toy storage too – like the chest of drawers underneath the shelves and those large floor baskets across the room that we mentioned earlier.

Oh, I also think we need to buy a beanbag now. Our kids were obsessed with this one. Like the chairs were chumps. They both wanted to be ON THE BEANBAG AT ALL TIMES.

light | chairs | table | beanbag | pouf | dresser | shelves | rug | wallpaper

I’m so excited to see the finished pictures of this space in Real Simple’s October issue. Plus there are so many other amazing spaces that we already got to see in various states of near-completion, like Mandi’s master bedroom and Shavonda & Carmeon’s office. Speaking of which, we overlapped Shavonda and Carmeon‘s visit and it was SO. MUCH. FUN. to finally meet them both in person. We’ve been IG buddies for ages (you might remember that Shavonda talked to us about downsizing on our podcast last year) so hanging with them was the perfect end to an extremely fun day.

Plus Shavonda got this sweet picture of me and John where we look like we’re wearing one large black t-shirt with three arm-holes. If that ain’t marriage, I don’t know what is.

Oh, and as for what happens to all of this stuff and this house when the photos are taken for Real Simple’s October issue… well, the house gets sold and the furniture gets auctioned off for a good cause! I love that nothing goes to waste, and in creating such a fun space, everything ends up benefiting people who need a helping hand. They haven’t picked this year’s charity yet, but when they do I’ll let you know.

So thanks, Real Simple! It was Real Fun ;) #MomJokes4Days

P.S. If you’d like to see other rooms we’ve designed for a good cause, we loved doing this very special room makeover for a local family, this teacher’s lounge for a local school, and these three bedroom makeovers for three amazing kids.

*This post contains affiliate links

The post Our Room For Real Simple’s Idea House appeared first on Young House Love.

Our Room For Real Simple’s Idea House published first on https://aireloomreview.tumblr.com/

[maverick-gone-home]

Six Crows-Chapter One, Part Five

Two dudes, one bed, and a crap ton of monsters that aren’t that bad.

Warnings:

Swearing

No Cannon Characters (All I did was use the show as a basis and wrote the story in the show’s universe, but it doesn’t really touch the show’s characters at all. Crowley was there for a few lines though.)

Cannon Typical Violence

Start here to read it on Tumblr

Start here to read it on Archive of Our Own

The door swung open into the kitchen, a loud bang sounding as it hit the wall and bounced slightly. Vincent stood in a defensive position, the angel-blade readied at his side and his brows drawn together.

Crowley stood next to the kitchen island, his hands stuffed into the pockets of his long coat. Eli was nearby, sitting in a stool with his arms crossed. On the island lay a dead dog. They looked to Vincent, both of their words falling short.

"Call your dog off, feathers?" Crowley's accent broke the silence. Eli laughed softly, hanging his head and shaking it slightly. Vincent's face flushed in embarrassment as he stood up straight.

"Sorry, Mr. Crowley," Vincent began as we walked back into the bathroom to place the angel-blade back under the sink, "I didn't expect there to be a demon in the apartment."

"Took you long enough to notice," Elijah commented from his seat at the spinning stool. He hadn't changed positions, his arms still crossed over his chest and one foot resting on the step of the stool.

"So," Vincent entered the kitchen again, shaking his hair of excess moisture to some extent, "You do know we eat of that counter, right?" He motioned to the dead dog on the kitchen island. It was large, with dark matted fur and menacing teeth that undoubtedly could have torn a normal human to bits. He sniffed the air once, the scent of soap, the sweet scent of Elijah, the sour scent of Crowley, and a hint of rabies coming from the dead animal. "Didn't think Crowley could get a dead rabid dog this quick."

"I deliver, but if we could get back to the agreements, Elijah," Crowley, turned on his heel to look at Eli again.

"Right. I'll call Nicolson up and tell him I've got the dog, you drop it off, and it's one less favor you owe me." Elijah stood, pulling his phone from his trouser pocket. "I'll go make the call. You two play nice." Elijah began to tap on the screen and stepped into the bedroom for privacy.

"So, Crowley," Vincent began cheekily, "how's Hell?"

"It's fine, mutt." Crowley had never been a 'fan' of Vincent. They always had a passive aggressive banter that went on between the two. Pin-pointing the exact reason they didn't like each other was troublesome, but the closest thing Elijah could find as a reason was that Crowley didn't like Skinwalkers (something about them being too shifty and that they made it hard for him to do anything in secrecy in the borough) and Vincent wasn't fond of Demons, which was understandable.

"What about those hunters you're so fond of?" Crowley looked at Vincent out of the corner of his eye, glaring at him. Vincent smirked. "Skinwalker," he said referencing to himself, "I hear stuff."

"Stick your nose where it doesn't belong and it'll get cut off."

Vincent sighed, walking towards the cabinets and pulling a bottle of scotch and two glasses out. "Drink?"

"I won't be staying long." Crowley wasn't hoping to stay long. He would never admit it, but Eli scared him. Crowley knew what Eli was capable of, and that if Eli wanted to, he could play the world into anyone's hand. He knew he only busied himself with Manhattan because he was bored with planning and winning wars for others.

"We've got your favorite," Vincent tempted, holding the bottle so that Crowley could read it. It was Craig, aged thirty years. Crowley eyed Vincent and the bottle skeptically. His eyes squinted and his lips parted to form the expression he made when weighing options.

"Sure..." Vincent set the glasses down and poured some scotch into each glass. He closed the bottle and carried a glass to Crowley, offering it to him. Crowley accepted the glass, and Vincent took a sip of his drink. Crowley followed, Elijah entering the room again after finishing his phone call.

Once the drink touched Crowely's lips, it immediately burned him. He dropped the glass. It shattered loud against the hard tile floor.

"You put holy water in my drink!" Crowley exclaimed, his voice rising ever so slightly in pitch.

"That's," Vincent poked a finger into Crowley's chest, "for giving me a silver rimmed glass." Crowley narrowed his eyes at Vincent. "Your move, hell-bound."

Elijah coughed, announcing his presence. "Am I interrupting something?"

"Nothing at all," Crowley answered with a fake smile and a small nod. "Just dropped my glass on accident. So, can I send the body to get dropped off?"

"Yeah, Nicolson says he'll be out back with someone to help carry it in." Elijah put his phone back into his pocket. "If there are any complications, just contact me." Crowley disappeared a few short seconds later, along with the body of the dead dog. Elijah walked towards Vincent, eyeing the broken glass on the floor before looking towards Vincent with a raised brow. "Are you winning?"

"I don't, uh, know what you're talking about," Vincent played dumb.

"The little prank-war between you and Crowley. Don't act like I don't know." Elijah crossed his arms.

"Maybe? I'm not really sure." Elijah shook his head.

"Rookie," he muttered under his breath. "I'm going to let this ride and evaluate you once somebody wins. If Crowley comes to me and tells me to tell you to stop, you win, but if you give up, he wins."

"Are you going to help me?"

"Not at all." Elijah smiled devilishly. "Get this cleaned up and make sure you call Roy. Then you can do what you want since we'll be doing nothing till we get any word on unknown ghouls."

"Sure thing, boss," Eli eyed him strangely when he called him boss since he had never called him that before. Vincent shook his head, chuckling, before cleaning up the mess that had been caused by his prank on Crowley.

Elijah put away the bottle of scotch and pulled out a map, lying it over a portion of the island. He starred places with a pencil while Vincent cleaned. "Looking for possible hide-outs?" Vincent asked.

"Yup." He sighed. "There are a lot though, even if we narrow it down to the area around Orchard Street and the parking garage. We're just going to have to wait for a report."

Vincent nodded, making a noise of agreement as he finished his glass of scotch before cleaning and drying the glass. He looked to the clock in the kitchen. "I'm going to go to sleep. I was out late on the Orchard Street outing and the kennel wasn't ideal for sleeping." He yawned. "If you need anything, just wake me up." Elijah nodded, not looking up from the map, holding the pencil between his teeth.

Vincent left the kitchen and entered the bedroom. He turned on the bedside lamp before turning out the overhead light and cracking the door that lead to the kitchen so that light could still creep into the room. He stripped of his over shirt and pants, leaving him in his white under shirt and dark colored underwear. He pulled the soft, white comforter back and crawled into the queen sized bed before leaning over and turning out the bedside lamp.

He had been asleep for maybe an hour when the door creaked open.

"Vincent?" Elijah whispered into the calm air.

"Yeah?" His voice was raspy from sleep, though it wasn't extreme. He cleared his throat. "What is it?"

"You didn't call Roy." Vincent sat up, turning the lamp on.

"Shit, sorry Eli. I completely forgot." He glanced around the room. "Hey can I use your phone? Mine's at the compound."

"Yeah, sure," Eli said as he pulled his phone from his pocket and tossed it to Vincent. Vincent dialed Roy's number and waited as the dial tone sounded.

"Elijah?" Roy's voice sounded into Vincent's ear. Eli was leaning against the doorway, his arms crossed as his head tilted ever so slightly to the left while he watched Vincent.

"It's actually Vincent," Vincent said into the phone, his voice still a tiny bit raspy, but enough that another alpha male could notice over the phone. Alpha male Skinwalker's voices usually deepened like that when they did... Things... (A/N: This is so weird why am I writing something like this. Know what? This is a far as we're going to say about that this part.)

"Vincent? Why are you using Elijah's phone?"

"I left my phone at the compound." A beat of silence aired between them. "Look, Roy, the reason I'm calling is to tell you life with the East Pack just hasn't been working. I'm moving in with Eli and I'll be coming to get my stuff tomorrow. It's not your fault; you did a great job helping me integrate, it just wasn't working out."

"Oh, it's fine. I wish we could have made it work."

"Thanks for understanding Roy."

"I'm happy for you both."  Vincent's face twisted into an expression of pure confusion, his eyebrows knitting together and his lip pulling up ever so slightly.

"I don't think I understand, Roy."

"You and Elijah... You know, your voice was doing the thing, you're at his place and it's kind of late, whenever you would comeback to the compound we could always smell him on you..."  Vincent's mouth hung open in disbelief. It wasn't bad that they thought him and Elijah were like that, but it was that Roy actually thought, Vincent and Eli... Did stuff like that.

"No, no, no, Roy. I'm not gay for Eli. Pack life just wasn't working out." Eli choked a bit as he heard the sentence.

"Oh, well, sorry about the misunderstanding... If you want I can get some people to help you move."

"It's fine, Roy. Eli and I can get it, he just thought I should let you know. "

"That's sweet of him. Well, you two have a good night. I guess I'll be seeing you tomorrow."

"Yeah, goodnight Roy." Vincent sighed and hung the phone up. "Here's your phone back," he said tossing the phone to Eli.

"Do I want to know what he said?" Elijah's eyebrow was quirked as he still stood leaning against the door frame.

Vincent shook his head. "I'll tell you tomorrow. Right now, I just want to get some sleep."

"You want the door cracked?"

"You know me so well," Vincent whispered as he pulled the covers back over his shoulders, returning back to his quiet slumber.

well... this was a kind of weird part to write (at least from what i remember. I’m crossposting here, actually).

[endlessarchite]

Our Room For Real Simple’s Idea House

Earlier this month we took the whole family (dog included!) up to Brooklyn for a few days to put together the space we’ve be designing for this year’s Real Simple Idea House over the past five or so months.

I realize there’s a lot to unpack in that sentence (especially if you missed our podcast episode or Instagram stories about it) so we’ll catch you up right here and show you the *almost* finished space. And explain what’s still left to be done before their big photoshoot for the magazine and tell you about how some last-minute curveballs actually made the room better. And tell you what they do with everything in the house once the idea home is all said & done. That’s a lot of ands, so buckle up because we have a lot to tell ya.

side table | daybed | wallpaper | art | lamp | pillows | quilt | rug | octopus

This is the second year that Real Simple magazine has taken over a home in Brooklyn, assigned each room to a different “designer” (there’s typically a mix of certified interior designers & bloggers & design TV personalities, etc) and then they photograph the finished spaces for their magazine (this one will featured be in their October issue). Here’s last year’s house which we loved following along (especially since our friends Jenny Komenda & Sabrina Soto each got a room in that house.

We were completely surprised & extremely thrilled when they asked us if we wanted to do a room this year – and they assigned us the “guest room/playroom” – which felt just perfect for us (we love multi-function rooms, especially when it involves balancing the needs of both grown-ups and kids… even if the family is imaginary in this case).

light | chairs | table | beanbag | pouf | dresser | shelves | rug | wallpaper

So since March we’ve worked remotely with the Real Simple team to make this room happen. They sent us pictures (like the one below) and measurements and floor plans, we sent back design plans and a mood board and a floor plan and links to each product selection. Everything had to be approved by their editors (they didn’t want a certain space to feel wildly incongruous with any of the other rooms and they also didn’t want duplicate or too-similar items or ideas from space to space) so it was a fascinating puzzle to put together from afar.

Once everything that we ordered had arrived in the room, we spent one marathon day putting things in place and navigating some 11th hour challenges that are inevitable in these types of projects. We didn’t get EVERYTHING completed (most notably our long white curtains were back-ordered so they’ll go up later – which will completely soften that industrial back wall so it looks a lot more like the rest of the room) but it’s around 95% done in these pictures, and the Real Simple crew will get it to full 100% before their photographer comes in.

And yes, those are our son’s feet poking out in the picture above and our daughter is laying on the bed under a blanket. We decided to make this a big family trip – mostly because we wanted to see relatives and friends in the NYC/NJ area while we were up there, but also because we thought it’d be fun for our kids to see us tackle this firsthand. It was basically one big “take your kids to work” adventure, and they both got into it and started suggesting what they’d like (our daughter even sketched out some ideas on her little magnetic drawing tablet), and they both served as “quality control” to make sure the beanbag was comfy and the rug was soft enough to roll on. In short: it was a ton of fun to have them there.

In any of these combo rooms, there can definitely be a range of percentages when it comes to the balance. For example, sometimes people have a playroom with a futon in it and it’s 95% playroom, and 5% guest room (that futon is literally the only guest room-ish thing about it, and it’s used very rarely).

mirror | side table | daybed | wallpaper | art | lamp | poufs | quilt | rug | octopus

In this case, the brief from Real Simple was to make it look mostly like a guest room, so any grown up would walk in and love it and want to sleep there, but to also work in some kids stuff – both hidden (in storage bins, baskets, behind closed drawers, etc) and on display (on open shelves, in lidless baskets, etc). So I’d call this room’s particular percentage 75% guest room & 25% playroom. When you’re tackling a multi-use space like this, do whatever percentage actually works functionally and feels right for your home (remember, this is an imaginary family).

As for pulling this room’s design together, I’ve been obsessed with this daybed for years, so it was the launch point for the whole room as soon as Real Simple said that a single bed was their preference for the space. Picture me punching the air and screaming “I GET TO USE MY DREAM DAYBED!!!!”

light | baskets | daybed | wallpaper | art | poufs | pillows | quilt | rug | chair | table

Daybeds are also great because they can function as both a bed (when it’s in guest room mode) and a couch (when it’s in playroom mode). We also balanced some other needs for both functions with some other furniture choices. A nice big side table with books & mags for a guest along with a reading lamp checks the guest room box, while some large lidded storage baskets on the other side of the bed checked the playroom box (see photo above).

The wallpaper was also sort of a happy accident too. The original wallpaper we had suggested was also very tone-on-tone and I had picked it because I LOVED how playful the pattern was (look how cute!). Since it was still an extremely neutral color palette, but the pattern was fun for kids, I thought it would be perfect for this dual space, but the editors worried it might skew too playroom so we selected this more affordable palm one instead. We love how the room turned out, but I still love the original wallpaper pick too – so if you’re creating a playroom or a kids room, I think it would be so much fun (heck, as a grown woman I’d like it in my space too).

mirror | daybed | wallpaper | art | lamp | pillows | quilt | octopus

I am just in love with that octopus, as were the kids. What is it about a big stuffed animal with a slightly dopey expression that steals your heart? Also, some of our pillow fills hadn’t arrived yet so that droopy bolster pillow below is stuffed with spare bath towels. THE MAGIC OF PHOTO STYLING, EVERYBODY! Also this large print from Juniper Print Shop was such a perfect solution (all the right colors, looked great with the wallpaper, and feels like a kid would love staring at it just as much as a grown up – in fact our kids asked us whose house it was – ha!).

daybed | wallpaper | art | pillows | quilt

Another playroom “must” for us is a table or desk that can serve as a craft/art/game space. This room had very little wall space (aside from the bed wall, it was pretty much all windows, closets, and doors) so we knew a floating desk or table was our best bet. A round table is always great in these scenarios and we knew our drop-leaf table would earn bonus points because the leaves can be folded down to make it more compact if needed. Plus there’s room for two blue-gray chairs that can be moved to any of the four sides of the table. Flexible furniture is always a win.

So we just hoped when we showed up that we could make it work, and we love how it looks by the windows. Imagine coloring or doing a puzzle there while looking outside on a gorgeous sunny day. Please also imagine my double wide white flowy curtains because all of that industrial black frame that you see below will be muuuuuch softer once they’re hung. I can’t wait to see the photos from the magazine because it’s going to be yet another demonstration about how curtains completely change a room. Stay tuned…

wallpaper | rug | chairs | table | beanbag

This room is also great because it had two matching closets along the wall to the right of the window above. Why is that great? Well, it was a no-brainer to make one useful for guests (their clothes, a suitcase, etc) and use the other one for kids storage (games, books, art supplies, etc). The guest closet is being outfitted by professional organizers (they’re doing pretty much every other closet in the house too, as well as the pantry) so our task was to tackle the kids closet, which we wanted to make open and accessible – and cute enough to be in plain view 24/7… so our first step was to remove the sliding doors.

I realize that “doors off” approach could sound counterintuitive since the fastest way to clean up for guests is to just throw stuff behind closed doors, but we’ve found that can also breed Monica closets (especially when toys are involved). Plus this is an idea house… how fun would this room be if we just had kids stuff hiding behind a closed door? So instead, we got to create this little nook full of functional storage that looks good too (the stenciled dresser is such a great piece that’s easy on the eyes yet super smart for storing things out of sight).

chairs | table | beanbag | dresser | shelves | wallpaper

So at least consider creating some storage like this in your home, which can fend off the urge to shove everything into a closet, and instead create a manageable and simple system for things (both concealed and out in the open) so that you love looking at it. When everything has a legit spot to go back to after it’s done being played with, it really isn’t very hard to maintain (and even kids can clean up on autopilot).

Another example of this concept is the back wall of our bonus room in our house, where we have concealed cabinets for storing games and art supplies and puzzles and even bonus guest blankets and pillows for when people sleep in there, but also has fun open shelving so you walk in and see some playful and very functional items right out in the open.

But back to the idea room. These shelves were actually our biggest hiccup in the plan, and they’re what ended up taking up the biggest chunk of time during our install day. Our original shelves were backordered, but we didn’t find that out with enough time to order new ones.

Originally we were going to do colorful shelves full of books & toys, but physically being in the room that day made it clear that this wall needed some wood tones to balance out the daybed and the other lovely wood tones on the other side of the space.

HOORAY FOR THE COLORFUL SHELF DELAY! It truly was the best hiccup we could have asked for, because these wood shelves made the room turn out so much better than it would have if those hadn’t been backordered. After we arrived, we immediately began hunting for options that were in stock and available that day, and landed on these LISABO shelves from Ikea. And there was an Ikea like 15 minutes from the house in Brooklyn so we were able to have them in hand by lunchtime!

We filmed a whole segment with Real Simple about hanging the shelves (who knows if we were coherent enough for them to use it but we’ll share it if/when it comes out), and you can see that the more neutral shelves still ended up looking colorful and fun, thanks to the addition of some toys and books and blocks.

And I know the idea of color-coding your shelves can be eye-roll inducing, but it ended up being great for this tiny space. I wasn’t super Type-A about it. I just quickly tossed things together mostly by color… but there’s yellow & pink in that top right corner and orange & hot pink in the top left, so it’s not anything that took too long or was overwrought.

In fact it took us about 1.5 hours to hang these shelves (two words: cinderblock walls) but it took me like 9 minutes to style them. Not kidding. And the cool thing is that as people use items and kids grow and change, shelves evolve too. Open shelves aren’t a museum. Nobody has to painstakingly put things back the same way each time. It’s actually fun to try different groupings, and this rainbow-ish approach made our eyes happy, but the shelves in our bonus room have changed so much over the years. It’s all gonna be ok. Don’t stress. Just put things you like to look at on open shelves and hide stuff you don’t wanna see in concealed cabinets or drawers or baskets or bins. Truly, it’s a simple system that you can actually can keep up with.

A note on the shelves themselves, because they exceeded our expectations by like a million. I had never personally heard of or seen these shelves before (they said “new” on the Ikea site when John dug them up on his phone in that panicked we-have-to-find-something-today search) but I’m SUPER impressed by them. They’re very solid, relatively easy to hang (would’ve taken about 10 mins per shelf if we didn’t have cinderblock walls which required a masonry bit), and the wood tone is perfect. Blonde and casual. Smooth & expensive looking. But not.

And since we know keeping picture-perfect shelves isn’t realistic for all of your toys, we always like to incorporate some closed toy storage too – like the chest of drawers underneath the shelves and those large floor baskets across the room that we mentioned earlier.

Oh, I also think we need to buy a beanbag now. Our kids were obsessed with this one. Like the chairs were chumps. They both wanted to be ON THE BEANBAG AT ALL TIMES.

light | chairs | table | beanbag | pouf | dresser | shelves | rug | wallpaper

I’m so excited to see the finished pictures of this space in Real Simple’s October issue. Plus there are so many other amazing spaces that we already got to see in various states of near-completion, like Mandi’s master bedroom and Shavonda & Carmeon’s office. Speaking of which, we overlapped Shavonda and Carmeon‘s visit and it was SO. MUCH. FUN. to finally meet them both in person. We’ve been IG buddies for ages (you might remember that Shavonda talked to us about downsizing on our podcast last year) so hanging with them was the perfect end to an extremely fun day.

Plus Shavonda got this sweet picture of me and John where we look like we’re wearing one large black t-shirt with three arm-holes. If that ain’t marriage, I don’t know what is.

Oh, and as for what happens to all of this stuff and this house when the photos are taken for Real Simple’s October issue… well, the house gets sold and the furniture gets auctioned off for a good cause! I love that nothing goes to waste, and in creating such a fun space, everything ends up benefiting people who need a helping hand. They haven’t picked this year’s charity yet, but when they do I’ll let you know.

So thanks, Real Simple! It was Real Fun ;) #MomJokes4Days

P.S. If you’d like to see other rooms we’ve designed for a good cause, we loved doing this very special room makeover for a local family, this teacher’s lounge for a local school, and these three bedroom makeovers for three amazing kids.

*This post contains affiliate links

The post Our Room For Real Simple’s Idea House appeared first on Young House Love.

Our Room For Real Simple’s Idea House published first on https://bakerskitchenslimited.tumblr.com/