We’ve been foster parents for almost 8 years, always in the same three bedroom house. Well, now a four bedroom house!
There’s a master bedroom, and that’s stayed ours all along. But the other two bedrooms on the second floor have gone through a million different permutations.
Kiddo was our first foster kid, and she immediately snagged the room that was pale blue. At that time, it looked like this:
I’d decorated so things were fairly neutral, and could work for a variety of kids.
Kiddo stayed in that front bedroom for a long long time, even after she’d gone home. It stayed Kiddo’s room because she visits regularly, often spending weekends with us.
Sprout’s rooms
When Sprout arrived as a wee almost two-year old, she went into a toddler bed in the other bedroom – the one with a purple rug. By then, that room had had 5 other long-term foster kids in it, and several short term fosters. It too started out fairly generic. Neutral walls, yellow decor to try to balance out the purple of the rug. It had gone through a twin bed incarnation, a crib one, and toddler beds.
It stayed Sprout’s room for a while, but eventually, we rearranged things again and put in bunk beds so Kiddo could share with Sprout and we could use the front room for a teenager: Miss Kicks.
After things blew up dramatically with Miss Kicks and she vanished seemingly into the ether, we put Kiddo back in the front room that had originally been hers, (Musical bedrooms! Whee!) and Sprout got her own room… until Sunny came.
Then Sprout’s room got a second twin bed added and Sprout and Sunny shared the room. (We couldn’t keep the beds bunked because of the girls’ disabilities so cut the bunk down and bought a second twin bed.)
A new room for Kiddo:
Finally, Kiddo decided she wanted to move to the attic. It was an out-of-the-blue pronouncement. Ours was a semi-finished attic with fun eave closets and a built-in-desk to rival all others. It had been my office for a while but had gone back to being just storage.
We readily agreed to make a 4th bedroom upstairs for several reasons:
1. We needed to separate Sprout and Sunny
2. It would be very cool tween bedroom space
3. We needed to separate Sprout and Sunny
4. It would add value to the house
5. We needed to separate Sprout and Sunny.
Those two sisters get along way better when they have lots of time apart. They’re excited to see each other in the morning and after school, but argue roughly 80% of the rest of their time together. Ha! They’re polar opposites, like my sister and I were.
Anyway, we built a wall, and redid half the attic to create a 4th bedroom up there for Kiddo. It was designed solely for Kiddo to her specs, and turned out pretty magical!
Once we were sure Kiddo was happy upstairs (I can’t say “once we finished her room” because we still have 1/8 of a wall to finish building and a door frame to install…) we then let Sprout choose: did she want to stay in the room she shared with Sunny, and have Sunny move to Kiddo’s old front room? Or did she herself want to go to Kiddo’s old front room?
Sprout immediately opted for Kiddo’s old room.
The front room’s incarnations:
The front room has hosted Kiddo, Miss Kicks, the 3-day-old infant whose nickname I can’t remember who we had for 2 months, Little Dude, and now Sprout.
It’s really a sweet little room, with the curtain I’d originally installed for my meditation space surrounding the twin bed and adding charm. But the paint is a little the worse for having had 5 foster kids in it, especially Miss Kicks, who was hard on furniture and walls. It’s also faded in spots, as blue tends to do, and is just… generic. I tried sprucing it up with artwork but it somehow just looks like I put leftover artwork from other rooms into Sprout’s room. Which is kind of what I did.
It just… it isn’t HER.
So I should not be surprised that, when asked if she wanted anything for her upcoming adoption, Sprout immediately asked for a “Spooky Bedroom! Pleeeeeease Mommy?”
She’d recently seen this gem of a gothic nursery, the link to which had been sent me by a wise friend. And she is a child obsessed.
I should explain that this kid is into all things spooky. She already has skeleton bed sheets and a skeleton hanging in one corner of her room. But she loves ALL THE SPOOKY THINGS, (or at least likes them in theory – she screams when she encounters spiders in real life). She likes bats, and spiders, and all of everything to be black. She likes skeletons and pumpkins and if she could just have pumpkins in black, please, she’d probably be even happier.
I’m not entirely sure how we got here. Surely some of it is positive reinforcement from me because I love Halloween and gothic things too. But this tot has loved Halloween the best of any holiday since she first discovered Halloween was a thing at age 2. She tells me year round what her next Halloween costume choices are, and goes for all black clothing year round too. This is her favorite season. That’s all there is to it. And she thinks spooky things are hilarious and endearing at the same time.
So. In honor of her upcoming adoption, (so far the November date is holding!) we are redoing Sprout’s bedroom to make it gothic. She and I sat down and spent an increasingly hilarious afternoon finding gothic items she loved on Amazon and creating a list for her. Her taste, it turns out, is entirely her own. Each of the items she picked is different from what I would have picked!
The walls shall be:
The curtains shall be:
I’ll change out the curtains around the bed to all black too. My friend C got her this light, which is very Edgar Allan Poe and oozing with Sprout charm:
But my single favorite item that Sprout picked out?
I can’t handle how cute it is that she wants a moon-howling werewolf in her bedroom. She loves this thing hopelessly!
Truly, when I say we had a blast making her list, it is not expressive enough phrase. We laughed and shouted and she did at least a dozen “OMG I love it” dances. Ha! This kid is something else, through and through.
We still have lots of stuff on the list to get before we can make it official and do the surprise renovation, but I can hardly wait. Seth is on board, and we shall start the renovation and try to get it all done while she’s at school one day. I’ll have everything unboxed and ready and hidden ahead of time. Seth will paint, I’ll remove Winnie the Pooh quotes from the walls, and together we’ll meet somewhere in the middle.
Until then, keep dreaming of your gothic fairy tale, Sprout, and keep being undauntedly yourself!
sprinklesonachaoscupcake.com 