New Play Room

We have a 400-square-foot bonus room above the garage that has undergone several major changes since we moved into this home a year ago. It was not baby proofed and it does not have a doorway at the top of the stairs that come off the kitchen, so we were in continual battle to keep John out of there. (Nor would a baby gate attach at the bottom of the stairs. We couldn't put a baby gate at the top of the stairs either because the litter box was up there and my cat Missy is too fat and old to leap over gates anymore.) We were so tired of the battling with John that we baby proofed the room as best we could and made it a play room. (Now there is only one room left not baby proofed: the combination guest room-Mama's office-sewing room upstairs.)

Here is the view as I stand at the top of the stairs opening into the room. John can open those file cabinets, so I have temporarily closed the doors with packing tape. You can see that I moved the bookshelf in front of the little doorways that open into a crawl space. I bought the cute Kindergarten classroom-style decorations at the dollar store.
A view from the stairs straight back to the windows overlooking the back yard. I have a little stereo I'll be putting on top of those file cabinets so John can listen to music up there. What he loves most about this room is the wide open space so he can run madly in circles ("dancing!").

He can do artwork at the craft table:

I can walk on the treadmill while watching TV and having the kids play idyllically around me. Even better, I can continue to talk about walking on the treadmill a year after moving into this home and having walked on the treadmill all of--let me count--zero times.

The TV nook, with the armoire locked so that John doesn't turn on the TV without our supervision:

The view toward the top of the stairs. You can see a collection of empty cardboard boxes: that is for shipping gifts and such. I figure that if John gets into them, he can't get hurt and empty cardboard boxes are loads of fun. Also note the baby gate I have at the top of the stairs: that is to prevent a toddler running wildly while having fun from failing to look where he is going and careening down the stairs. Just today while we were up there, John did just that: went running wildly and smacked himself into the baby gate, thus not falling down the stairs.

In the future, this room stands a high probability of also being used for home schooling.