As new parents, we’ve already learned so much about how to best engage Ollie — what toys to play with, how to help her develop new skills, and so much more. Before motherhood, I had been told how quickly children change and grow. Now, we’re seeing for ourselves how Ollie changes from one day to another — from growing more hair and growing taller to developing new skills like blowing raspberries or babbling — and it truly is unbelievable how quickly she is growing!
Since Ollie’s birth, we’ve used our living room as her playroom — but we’ve quickly found Ollie needs more space and a space of her own to freely explore. She’s already begun scooting around, and we know crawling is just around the corner. So, we’ve decided to repurpose our sunroom as a Montessori-inspired playroom — a bright, cozy space where Ollie can explore freely and we can play together as a family. We’ve sold all of our sunroom furniture so we could begin from scratch and create a fresh, new, cozy space for Ollie to enjoy! Here is what I’m envisioning:
Montessori-Inspired Playroom
Curtains
Our sunroom has windows on three walls — and one of those three walls is a 3-panel patio door with transom windows, so it’s as if the entire wall is windows. That being said, I want to begin by replacing the curtains with less-sheer, more substantial curtains. These blackout curtains are what I’m envisioning — and they can be used just to block sun in certain places, as the room becomes too bright, especially in summer.
Area Rug
Ollie has a couple of playmats, but I wanted to choose a soft area rug for when her playmats aren’t in use. This hand-knotted rug is beautiful, and it’s also soft. These days, Ollie loves textures and prefers playing on our rug and our bed with us versus on her flat playmat. I love the beautiful but subtle, matte pattern of this rug. Pictured above, this Rifle Paper rug uses CloudPile which we love. We have CloudPile rugs for several rugs in our home.
Bookcase
One aspect of a Montessori-inspired playroom we love is offering accessible, open shelving for Ollie’s toys. I love the Dillon Long Low Console Bookcase from Pottery Barn, because it’s a grown-up piece of furniture but is accessible, too.
Chair and a Half
I used Interior Define to design my cozy office chair, and not only do I love how beautiful my office chair is — it’s easily the most comfortable chair we own. I envision this chair and a half in Ollie’s playroom, because not only is it wide enough to fit our family, but its depth can also be customized to create an even larger seat.
Floor Lamp
I envision a floor lamp — like this one, this one, or this one — to be placed beside the chair and a half. Having a reading nook where we can read together or a cozy space to curl up is something we have been missing in our house altogether. I purchased this one to try out in the space — and we’ll see how it goes!
Plants
We already own the exact olive tree pictured above — and we plan to keep a few other plants in our sunroom, too! We’re envisioning a few atop the bookshelf, so they’re out of Ollie’s reach.
Toys
We currently use Lovevery for a vast majority of Ollie’s toys; use my unique link for $20 off your first box from Lovevery. From left to right on the bookshelf: Here and here are my favorite children’s books for Ollie; they’re so beautiful and educational. The rainbow toy here or here and stacking stone toy here are beautiful and fun — and Ollie hasn’t yet learned how to play with her wooden xylophone, but she loves to look at it! From top to bottom: We purchased Ollie’s busy board for her for Christmas, I personally love the paint palette toy, and I love this xylophone, too.
What’s Next
The bookcase we ordered arrives in February, so it’ll be a few months until Ollie’s playroom comes together. In the meantime, I’m excited to continue brainstorming and dreaming up ways to make her playroom fun and magical and organized and functional.
