To Infinity and Beyond...

You may remember a few months ago when I wrote this post about Daniel's room. You're probably wondering what happened with the space bed idea, well here's what happened: it didn't happen. While Jeff had fun designing the bed, he realized that in order to actually build it, he would need several expensive tools that we did not own and decided his woodworking skills were not really up to par. So we looked into outsourcing the building of the bed but the price was a bit (to say the least) out of our price range. I wasn't too disappointed because while I thought it was a neat idea, I had a feeling it would only be cool for about the first month. So we scratched that idea and continued to look for a new bed. I still planned on sticking with the space theme but didn't necessarily need a "space themed bed". After checking out some more furniture stores and coming up empty I decided to search on-line. I ended up coming across this website. I thought the beds looked pretty neat and we fond out there was a store about 35min away that sold beds by this manufacturer. So we took a trip over there and really fell in love with the bed. It was good quality, creative and fun and we loved the idea that it was modular. The price was a bit more than we had planned on spending (but still cheaper than the rocket ship bed) but we knew this was a set that Daniel could use until he goes to college. To ease the pain of spending a big chunk of money, I decided I would cancel a trip Jeff and I had planned to the Florida Key... but that's called "sacrifice" as Jeff would say. We decided on a mid-height loft bed, a book shelf that fits underneath and a separate dresser. Since it's modular, when Daniel is older we can buy some attachment pieces to raise the bed and put a desk underneath. Not sure if that will actually happen but it's nice to have that option. Now that we had bought the furniture, it was time to repaint the room and work on the decorations. I love how it all came together and Daniel seems to love it too which is what really matters. I still need to buy a comforter and I am waiting on a window valance that I ordered but here are pictures of the "almost finished" product:

While the decoration on the wall (rocket and stars) may look like stickers they actually a really nice quality-constructed decoration that I bought from zwalls.com (with a mamapedia coupon!). The moon also lights up with all the different phases and has a remote to control it. Here's a close up of the "fort" part of the bed (the kids' favorite part!!):

This is inside the fort:

Love the bookshelf!

Notice the rocket ship night light...

This star lamp from Target has some glow in the dark stars on it (that's a CD player next to the lamp - color doesn't go but it works so we're keeping it:

He still has his "Daniel" chair in front of the window:

I had originally bought the USA for the rocket ship bed but was able to incorporate them into his room:

The space fan!

I also put up a some shelves (more details on that below). The picture hanging on the wall was actually sewn by my grandmother for my cousin Evan (hence the To: Evan). When my aunt heard that I was doing a space room for Daniel she was nice enough to give it to me to use in his room.

And finally, Uncle Brad had given Daniel a bunch of glow in the dark slime for his birthday. I was trying to figure out a way to incorporate this into his space room. With input from some friends, I decided to put the slime in jars and stick an object in with it. The slime doesn't really glow in the dark unless you hold a black light up to it (which we do have by the way, thanks to Uncle Brad!) but they still look cool (not sure if it comes across in the pictures):

Here's a close up of one of the jars. The colors are a little off due to the flash, but you get the idea...

And that's pretty much it! I was also able to sell Daniel's toddler car bed (thanks craigslist!) and the crib and dresser are currently at a consignment store. Those profits will help pay for the new furniture. I'm sure I'll add a few more decorations here and there but I'm very pleased with the way it turned out. What do you think?