Play Room for Kids

I have been wanting to convert one of our extra bedrooms into a simple play room for some time now. I have only put it off because one of our extra rooms is a cozy guest room which gets used mostly in the Summer time or around holidays and the other has been our office which gets used occasionally but, not quite enough to justify it tying up the entire bedroom.  I decided to move the office (which is basically just a desk and a computer) and combine it with the guest room.  Now that room will be used regularly between guests and my hubby's weekend work etc.  Problem solved!

The next challenge that I have run into is that converting a room usually requires time, elbow grease and $$ and $$ is by far the biggest obstacle.  So, I have been scheming about how to makeover our home office into a play room as cheaply as possible.  I have been saving images of play rooms that I love in a file for some time now.  All of these images were found on Google images.  I immediately noticed a few patterns in the rooms that I liked the most: they were all full of lots of generally bright and cheerful colors which I love, had a table and chairs in the center, cute art on the walls, had ample shelves for storage and usually a rug to define the center table area. 

Currently, the room that we will be making over is a rather serious dark blue.  Definitely a tad boring for a child's play room (in my opinion). I would like to brighten the room by painting it with a couple cheerful colors.  Paint is such an inexpensive way to bring an immediate transformation to a room.  I will also begin hunting for a kid-friendly rug on Craigslist to save $$ and hopefully with the furniture that I am getting rid of on Craigslist I will be able to get a couple of little things like a table set and a large cubicle shelf at IKEA

I am hoping that I can convince my hubby to build a very simple little bench to place between a couple of shelves and thus create a charming little reading nook or just another place for kids to sit in the play room.  I'm tempted to break out the power tools myself but, let's just say that math and precise measurements are not a skill or interest of mine.  I'm sure I could saw up a piece of wood real nice but, I doubt it would fit where it is supposed to.  Shameful I know...but, that is what awesome husbands are for!

I definitely want inexpensive and colorful decor for the walls.  I'm thinking about buying a used animal print alphabet or numbers book online (or something like that) and cutting out the pages (gasp!!) and framing and hanging each of them on the walls around the room .  Just an idea.  I'd love if the room could serve as an educational space as well as a play area.  

My dreams and the reality for our future play room room might end up being quite different but, regardless I look forward to eventually having a space that my little girl and her friends can explore and destroy.  A place where I can relax and know that she will be safe and a place where I can stick all of her treasures which are currently spilling all over my entire house.