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Before and After: a gorgeous playroom makeover

A bright and bold transformation on a budget!
Playroom makeover Alexis Teasdale
After: Storage heaven!

Looking for inspiration for a fun and festive playroom for the kids? Look no further than DIY guru and party queen, Adelaide-based Alexis Teasdale. The gorgeous face behind The Festive Co, Alexis spends her days creating clever craft projects, styling stunning events, and planning the kind of parties you never want to leave.

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The mum of three has just completed a playroom makeover, and the results are big, bright and bold – the perfect setting for imaginative play and creativity.

So how did it all come together? We caught up with Alexis for a chat about the transformation of this gorgeous space.

What did the room look like before the makeover?

Playroom makeover
Before: A ‘holding space’ for toys
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We live in a really old house and most of the rooms are quite small. This ‘room’ is a kind of in-between space that you walk through from the kitchen to the lounge room – so a high traffic area! It has big glass doors down one end so it gets plenty of light and the previous owners used it as a little TV room.

When we moved in a bit over a year ago, I piled some toys in there so I could keep an eye on our small boys from the kitchen. I was resisting turning it into a playroom because I was worried about mess spilling into the rooms beside it, but recently when the boy’s schools closed because of Covid-19 I gave it a much-needed makeover so they could really own the space and enjoy it. I should have done it ages ago!

Were there any challenges to transforming your space?

The only challenge was the same as everyone else – storage! How to find enough storage to hold everything and keep it somewhat organised and still manage to look nice. 

Playroom makeover Alexis Teasdale
After: Storage heaven!
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What inspired your transformation?

The fact that our family of five was all of a sudden home 24/7 really was the catalyst. It’s always been the boys play space, but we only moved into this house at the end of 2018 so I’ve been taking my time trying to figure out where the kids enjoy hanging out. Because they’re still small, I’ve found they prefer playing near us rather than in the bedroom they share, so it was definitely time to put some effort into a dedicated play spot. 

I have a 5 year old, 3 year old and 9 month old, so while this was really for the bigger kids, I needed it to be safe for the baby too. Thats why I decided to do two tall shelves and two that created a low bench that was more accessible to her. 

Playroom makeover Alexis Teasdale

What were your playroom must-haves?

Good storage is the key to everything! You can have the most beautiful toys but unless they have somewhere to pack away into, the room is always going to look like a colourful, hot mess. I did this room on a shoe-string of a budget so it’s definitely possible to make storage work without it costing a fortune. If you already have bookshelves, big basket or toy boxes make packing away easy for little ones (if they’ll do it!)

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I also used to have a really big rug in the room, but swapped to a small one because the boys like to race their cars on the floor boards. I thought it would be harder to clean, but in a way it’s easier. Especially when things like Playdoh goes wild!

Playroom makeover Alexis Teasdale
Kids art

Favourite thing?

I love displaying the kids’ art. They do a lot of it at school and daycare and there’s only so much the fridge can hold! So the long shelf means I can add their art and just swap it in and out of the frames which all have plastic instead of glass, to be on the safe side.

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Ikea Komplement hack

Any hacks?

I use IKEA Komplement accessory hangers to squish all their soft toys into and hang on the wall. It’s an idea I found on Pinterest a few years ago for their bedroom and whenever people see it they love it!

Alexis Teasdale playroom

Soft toys are so hard to display and I find it hard to get rid of sentimental ones. Ok, all of them. They all stay! But at least now I’ve found a way to turn the into wall art too.

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The most important part of this though, is that they are hanging on real wall hooks – not sticky. If kids go to grab any toys and pull the hangers off the wall, you can lose paint!

Playroom

Love Alexis’s style? Here are her top 4 buys

1. Ikea Flysta storage shelves

These are smaller and cheaper than their commonly used KALLAX shelving. There are less options for the boxes that go inside, but they worked better in our small space. I’ve used even cheaper box shelves in my office and the box inserts are smaller than this, so always check your measurements when you’re ordering online and working within a budget. If you don’t have enough space in the boxes they become too hard to store toys.

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2. Ikea Mosslanda picture ledge 

3. Provincial Home Living hamper

I had a couple of these hampers already and sprayed them white so the worked a bit better in the space.  

4. ‘Choose your own adventure‘ art print from Blacklist Studio 

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See more of Alexis’s home at The Festive Co.

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How to make a cute kids’ play cafe

8 ways to make your home extra special

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