Another Big Reveal!

Before this summer of my interior decorating frenzy, this room was a guest room. A rather bland, very out-dated guest room. Here is a shot after The Boss remembered that I like "Before" pics, from the hall doorway looking into the room.

This is before the big transformation, but after the older boys spent several hours scraping and peeling an "Old World Maps" border down. Before the fresh paint and pretty girl-y touches, but after the first coat of primer was applied to the ugly, colonial blue, matte-finish trim paint. So, again, not a true "Before" picture. But standard fare for The Gang's home improvement projects!

Here is Aidan's room, now completely finished. I gave you a couple teaser pics a few weeks back, remember? This is the same view as the picture above, from the hall doorway in to the room.

(You can click on any of the photos for a larger view of what you are looking at.)

Tonight, we cleaned up and tied back the curtains, and tried to make a floor lamp work in the corner by the rocking chair. No luck on the floor lamp yet, so we are now thinking of adding a hanging Chinese lantern in the corner by the changing table. LadyBug has one for her reading corner and we love the soft light it sheds. This view (below) is from the corner that is to the far left of the doorway.

Here is the cozy crib that waits for our little Empress to grace it's space. I know, I know, we don't expect that she'll want to sleep in it immediately! We are totally ready for her to need to be in bed with us for a while. We love the snuggle time and bonding that sleep-sharing gave us with the older four, and are looking forward to sharing that with Miss Aidan, too

This is the cleanest closet in the house (for now anyway). Note the suitcases waiting to be packed and the little dresses all waiting for a little baby girl to fill them out. And the cute little swimsuit that we hope she's home in time to wear in our pool!

This antique dresser (below) was a gift to The Boss and I from a dear couple that we knew at our former church. We cherish it and are thrilled that all our babies' clothes have filled its drawers for 14 years now. It was crafted in the mid-to-late 1800's, and I enjoy thinking about the other children who used it for generations before mine.

The pictures to the right of the dresser are of The Boss and I when we were each only hours old. On the dresser is a lamp from my wonderful friend CJ, some pictures of Aidan from her referral and update, and a bunny I picked out when we started the room.
The panda W*bkin is a special present that The Boss and I picked up on her birthday, when we were missing her so much!

Some of the bare spaces on the walls around the room are being saved for pictures that we hope to take in China. We'd love to get a couple frame-worthy ones of her home province, of us together in the early hours of our new relationship, and of the beautiful land that gave her to us. The Boss is a great landscape photographer, so I anticipate quite a struggle narrowing the choices down to a few for her walls here. I also have an art project or two brewing in my mind, but I've just been way too busy to research just how to do it.

I hope you've enjoyed seeing these pictures as much as we enjoyed creating this room. I just know that there will be many, many happy memories made in this room as our new family dynamics form and bond our Aidan into her place in our home. Someday, I hope she can look at this room and catch a glimpse of how longed for and dreamed of she has been.