Cottage Industrialist

Why am I thinking about re-decorating my son's room at 6:55 on a Saturday morning? I could be working on the huge custom order I have to finish before December 25. Or I could be trying out prototypes for my handmade Christmas gifts. Wait! Here's an idea...I could be sleeping. Yeah, no dice.

So, redecorating the room. He will be three in four months. Which means that I am going to be forced sooner rather than later to concede that he is no longer a baby. Further complicating the emotional trauma associated with acceptance of this fact, I am facing a stylistic dilemma. Kids don't sleep in cribs forever. Especially not kids at the top of the height-weight charts.

When we move Mr. Kid to a big boy bed there will be sheets and comforters and things that will need to be handed down, made, or bought. All of his baby bedding was bought by a group of my friends, one of whom had a 40% discount at Pottery Barn at the time. I know, I know, Pottery Barn. But, I tell you, farm animals! Quilting! What is not to love? In fact, nearly three years later I am still in love with it and will be so sad to take the quilt down from the wall. But it really is a baby-ish item for a very kid-ish kid.

So what now? The problem is not a lack of inspiration. It's a lack of commitment. (I know. We've discussed this before.) The list of things I'd like to incorporate includes, but is not limited to:

• solar system bedding from Land of Nod--the colors, the quilting, the humor (commemorative former planet Pluto pillow? Come on!) are all there. I have been coveting this bedding since I saw it more than a year ago.

• a pack of Lotería cards brought to me from Mexico by a friend

• this airplane illustration I did based on the plane ("Little 372") my great-grandfather built with his students at Clemson University*

• a reproduction map of "Folkloric Peking" from 1936 brought to Mr. Kid from China by one of my co-workers--he pores over it at length, looking for the rickshaws, asking "what dey are doing?" in the Forbidden City, and trying to find Africa.

• dinosaurs, because, ROAR!

• some of Mr. Kid's dad's paintings--I think kids should be exposed to abstraction early. Especially if they're gonna make it in this family.

Individually, each of these things could be the starting place for a nice, clean, simple theme. But I'm just not one of those dwell modern parents who can have an all white room with two letterpressed cards in frames, an eames chair, and a cashmere polkadotted blanket that the kid will somehow never throw up or pee on. I am in awe of those people,** but I'm not one and I am finally comfortable enough with myself that I don't want to be. Still, I don't want to just throw a bunch of things I like together and, because I can't edit all my impulses, end up with something that looks cluttered. In my experience as a messy person, it is much easier for mess to get out of hand in a room whose design is cluttered. I want it to be easy for the kiddo to play and have a good time and feel at home in his space and still be able to clean it up in a hurry with a minimum of tears.

So as I'm trying to edit the above list of inspirations, I can see a theme of exploration/adventure emerging. Which is very cool in theory but cuts across my actual preference that my kid stay inside away from bugs, snakes, and other deadly pursuits until he is 30.

Thoughts? Advice?

*I get a lot of my crafty/engineering bent from my great-grandfather, who died the year I was born. I'm going to be writing more about him and about Little 372 soon.

**I have a question. You know those people--the ones with the houses that look like perfectly curated modern boutiques? Do they not have relatives who give them snowglobes from Myrtle Beach or Dora the Explorer sheet sets? If so, where is the closet where they put that crap, and can I have a corner?