Project: Reading Room Map Wall

It really all started with that map painting right in the center of the wall.

I bought it from Target years ago, when we were in our old house, and Madeline had just been born.

When we moved back into this house, Jamie, our old babysitter, hung it in the center of this wall.  I’ve stared at it every day for nearly three years since.

It was plain on that wall all by itself.

And lonely.

And needed more.

I knew that.

It just took me a long time to get ‘er done.

I wanted to create an entire wall around that map.

The kids love going on adventures.  That’s a given.  Love seeing where things are on the map.  Where people we love, live.  How far away xyz is.

Why not play that up?

Big time.

And so the idea of a whole map wall was born.

Over the last few months, I went about collecting more maps to fill up the space.

Two were from Amazon.

One was from Target for $5.00.

My parents dug out two super old ones.

And the rest (the top quarter of the wall to the ceiling) were from AAA.

One of the perks to AAA membership is free maps.

Oh yes, please.

The kids love the wall.

I love it.

And it’s finally another thing to cross off the giant I’ll-be-working-on-it-’till-I-die list of things to do.  Or, more specifically, my March 2012 goal list.

The room needs an area rug.

And I have two more things I want to do for on top of/and near the bookcase (details as soon as I finish them up).

And I think a grown-up chair is in order.

Because the room can currently seat a bajillion little people.

But no grown-ups, except for that long bench across the length of the map wall.

Which is not really conducive to reading.

But other than that, the reading room is done.

And we kind of love it.  The kids hang out there and read.  Do their homework.  Watch the world go by.  Or the world down our street anyway.

The pom-pom garland I made awhile ago (details here).  I chose those colors to complement the maps.

This print was picked up by a co-worker for me.  She texted me one night while standing in HomeGoods.  “Although I’ve never been in your house, I think you need this.”  She was, of course, right.  It hangs near the front door, opposite of the print shown in this post.

Favorite books.

Tins of pens and pencils.  Tubs of crayons and chalk.

An awesome creative space.

Perfection.

PS – Actually the map wall looked like this up until this afternoon.  I had showed my mom the completed picture, and she remarked that the bottom left map’s colors were a contrast to all the other maps and thought it would look better if it was a little more complementary.  I had one world map left, so when I got home, I did some rearranging, pulling down the original one in the bottom left, adding the world map to the middle, and pulling the original middle one down to the bottom.  Then after work, Mystic comes over and remarks that now the bottom left map and the bottom right map are the same (although one is laminated, one is not).  Of course he’s right too.  So I’m going to sit with it for a day or two and likely switch the order around again.

Source info: the hanging globes and lanterns come from Amazon and Pier 1:
Globe
Mini Lanterns
The larger lanterns were on clearance (under $2 each!) at Pier 1