Please excuse us for the lack of update…we’ve been so busy working on projects! Here’s a sneak peek of the London Room that Kidtropolis has been working on. They were designed for a UK family who had a baby coming.

And of course, one of these too

Here are some original sketches. Take a look.

Here are some travel stickers that we created that will be on the “luggage furniture.”

It took us about six weeks to finish all the items!

The Carousel Room

UPDATED 8/13/09

This 18’x20’ room with a 14’ ceiling is our most complex room to date. The room’s main element is its 8.5’ wide carousel that stands the full 14’ to the ceiling. The carousel carries on it 2 cribs (for the twins) as well as 2 carousel horses. The overall structure is strong enough to easily hold 3 adults standing on its roof.

The major physical challenge of the room was carrying up the 4 pieces of the carousel. Each of the 4 pieces weighed approximately 300 pounds (that was no joke when figuring we had to carry each piece up 2 flights of stairs with multiple twists and turns – yikes!!)

The room also displays a giant toy block cube wall that extends the full 18’ width and rises to a height of 11’ (each cube is 16”x16”).

Half of the cube wall is used as an armoire for storage. The wall itself used 100 letters each at a height of 8”.

The trickiest piece to the overall room puzzle was creating the fabric panels that extend from the carousel center post out to each window area (the panels became the window treatments).

These triangular fabric panels had to be created – but never installed or test fitted until we were at the installation site and ready to actually hang them.

In order to determine the exact dimensions prior to the installation I had to create a scale model of both the room and the carousel. This scale model enabled me to accurately measure the sizes for each fabric panel (and hey! It worked).

One unique element in the room was disguising the attic door opening. We created a giant ticket mounted on top of the ladder pull down for the attic.

The room also uses our unique fabric panel floor squares. Walking into the room is both a visual experience as well as a tactile one, with the soft pillow floor panels. The room uses a total of 57 floor squares in order to cover the full surface. The floor panels can be pulled up to change out if needed (just in case).

This Carousel Room was a true team effort. The actual install took us one week worth of 15 hour days with three of us working. The preparation design and fabrication time was between 1 to 2 months.

Here is the list of all elements created for the room:
Carousel:
-    8.5 foot wide structure / 14 feet tall
-    8 fabric panels (used for carousel and window treatments)
-    2 custom painted horses
-    faux wood floor, 120 pounds of sculptured appliqués

Block wall:
-    18 feet by 11 feet
-    100 letters (8 inches each)
-    bench seat with pad and pillows (16 pillows total)
-    4 individual blocks (used anywhere within room)
-    Armoire storage area used within 15 blocks

Shelves:
-    4 shelves (4 feet wide)
-    8 small letter block shelf brackets

Pictures:
-    2 horse portraits 24”x54” (image of each horse head)
-    1 ticket image 20”x50” (mounted on attic door)
-    1 monkey image mounted above TV frame

Floor:
-    57 fabric panel squares

There’s a spike in our views on the 10th.

We found out that a lot of the traffic was coming from Boing Boing.

We just want to give a big shout out to Boing Boing. Thank you DAVID PESCOVITZ from Boing Boing.

Click here to read the original article.

Here’s the latest room for a young boy, The Sailor Room. We’ll be writing about it soon.

Original Sketches

Canopy windows

These windows are the latest version of the window treatment that we created for the “Guiness room). The overall height of the room is 14 feet.

Guinness Room

Main elements for this room:

- Large 13 foot x 13 foot brick and plaster wall (1/2″ facade bricks attached to the wall with drywall and plaster between – faux finish plaster for the aged finish)

- Large antique style crate that hides the stereo and gaming systems beneath the TV (front 6 panels are speaker fabric)

- Tall window coverings (stylized after a middle easter nbazaar) the curtains can be either left flat or raised up by the pulley system on the ceiling

- Copper tubing around floor holds speaker wires etc.

- British military pith helmet lamp (the lamp uses the same copper tubing as used on the floor and houses the light within the helmet)

- 2 oil lamp lights (originally used as real oil lamps, these lamps were taken apart and reconfigured to be hanging lights)

Tips for Creating Children’s Rooms

Imagine . . . A little princes passes through a grand entrance into a room where beautiful, enchanting shades of pinks, greens, and yellows welcome her, ensuring she dreams of magical journeys and fairy tales.

The room’s amenities create a personal and cozy space for this little princess: a fantasy carriage crib placed under a large oak tree with woodland animals watching over her, a cozy glider in which to snuggle and rock on late nights, and a beautifully upholstered floor to play on.

In designing a nursery for your little princess or prince, there are five key components to consider: theme, focus, storage, growth, and safety.

Theme – Knowing the sex of the baby can influence the theme of the room. However, the theme of a nursery can also be neutral to accommodate either not knowing the baby’s gender until birth or as a special nursery for all of the babies in a family over the years before the transition to their “big kid” room.

The theme for this room is primarily “girl” and secondarily “princess.” The main foundation of the room’s design is classic and traditionally feminine. The fantasy carriage crib is the singular element that introduces the princess theme and can be removed as she grows up and wants to add different elements. The entrance to the room, typically an overlooked element in any room, is a beautiful Dutch door with a mini-entrance just for her. This added detail adds to the theme and the overall design.

Focus - Every room should have a main focus that brings the room together, whether it’s a mural, a piece of furniture, or another design element.

The focus of this room is the Carriage Crib. It is centered against the wall under a large mural of a tree with kind woodland animals around it. Upon entering the room your eyes are immediately drawn to the scale and detail of this element, with the added touch of the soft fabric creating an illusion of a canopy. Every other element in the room adds to this focal point either directly–the woodland creatures holding the fabric of the canopy–or indirectly–by adding interesting color or texture around the crib.

Storage - Every infant will accumulate so many things that it is absolutely imperative to consider additional storage for every day items as well as keepsakes or retired things.

This room has closet organizers for every day items. The storage unit along the window wall is a playful set of letter blocks that open individually or as a group for large cubicle storage spaces. The unit was originally designed as a window seat and later developed into a highly useful and playful storage solution. This piece can be updated by simply removing the letters and replacing them with mirrors, colors, or other images.

Growth – Some rooms are intended to stay nurseries for many years. Others will have to transition into toddler rooms, ‘tweenie rooms and beyond. Taking this transition into account when designing the room can save both time and money in the future without lessening the nursery feel. Later, consider changes to minor elements in a room for quick updates, including toys, pictures, bedding and fabrics.

As this little princess grows up, the crib portion of the carriage can be removed and a toddler mattress inserted, quickly converting the nursery into a toddler room.

Safety – A child’s room can never be too safe. There are standard precautions to take including securing all power outlets, keeping exposed shelving out of reach of little hands, and keeping any medicinal items in a secured location.

An additional design and safety element in this nursery is the floor. The wall-to-wall carpet has been removed and replaced with thickly padded upholstered squares. The squares provide additional color and pattern in fabrics that coordinate with the window seat and valance. The effect is visually inviting and provides a comfortably padded floor for hours of playtime. It will also help keep the princess safe as she learns to walk.

Whether you have an image of the nursery you want to create or you have yet to decide, starting with these five components will help you to create the room of your dreams for your little dreamer.

After two years, it was time to make the bed a little larger. So we took out the circular crib and dropped in a rectangular toddler mattress. This should give the child another year in the bed.

Playrooms

Playroom with Slide

Furniture

Armoire

Armoire Close and Open

Armoire Table

Desert Armoire

Modern Armoire

Modern Armoire Table

Modern Arcade Table

Playroom Table

Pirate End Table

Cabana End Table

Beds

Ship Bed

Cabana Bed

Beds

Sandcastle Bed

Garden Bed

Castle Bed

Girl Bed

Rooms

Boy Room

Furniture

Castle Armoire

Castle Armoire Desk

Garden Armoire

Garden Armoire Desk

Girl’s Armoire

One of our clients is having a baby (girl) soon.

This room was installed in 30 hours of a weekend. The overall room design was created from the clients choice of bedding. The room has a whimsical white picket fence attached on all 4 walls with a simple scenic background. The flower pots hung on one wall are standard gardening pots painted white with small flowers created to match the overall look of the theme. The canopy over the bed incorporates a fun battery powered LED night light that hangs next to the bed. This room was a joy to create with the full help from the client over a long weekend.

Kidtropolis also has a Facebook Fan Page. If you’re a fan of our custom kids’ furniture and you are on Facebook, please become a fan and show your support! (Click on image to go to the page)

Or go to http://www.new.facebook.com/pages

And search for Kidtropolis

You can become a fan on the right!

And thanks so much Claus, we saw your very nice wall post

UPDATED PHOTOS 9/4/2008

I am pleased to inform you that the Magic Tree House room is complete.

We want to say a special thank you to our client Deborah who had a big part in the overall direction of the project (it helps to have a client with a great eye for design, color, and space). We hope to do more work with her in the future. THANKS DEBORAH!!

The room now has a swing and a climbing rope for the kids (pulls in the overall look)

The armoire quickly became a large focus element within the room – including with it a fun element for the kids (the library ladder). The armoire was designed to fit within the overall look of the room and was painted with the same techniques used on the floor armoire below the treehouse. The standing armoire was also wired for the families TV in order to make a clean look. Size of the armoire comes out to almost 11 feet by 9 feet (BIG!)

The rope detail at the top of the ladder and the drybrushing on all the hardware was added in order to pull in elements from the treehouse (on the other side of the room).

Other details of the armoire…The lock is so vintage-looking!

multiple doors and drawers.

Yes, that’s a flat screen TV in the middle. The TV makes this room a great location for a quiet night of movies, or exciting Wii competitions for the entire family. You can store your favorite DVDs and Wii games in any of the drawers. Have your pick.

Let’s take a look at the other side of the room.

Note the new vegetable signs we added. Don’t they make that corner much more fun than it used to be?

Looking down from the tree house. The “vegetable buckets” are great containers for crayons, scissors and what not.

The best part is, once the kids are done with drawing, you can just lift the table up and it becomes a magnetic chalk board. A great place to proudly display the children’s artwork. (our client Deborah found a great recipe online for mixing our own chalkboard paint in order to match the sky blue – it worked great) It took 7 coats of magnetic paint and 3 coats of chalkboard blue —- YIKES!

O, and folding the table up is not the only way to create extra space, here’s all the storage space you get.

The inside of the drawers are carpeted, so delicate things are welcomed

(same carpet as in the treehouse floor)

Older photos…

We will be updating on this project (for the last time) very soon. Please keep checking our blog.

We were notified by a friend that our Magic Tree House was featured on Geekology.

Click here to read the article.

O, and Thanks a lot, Geekology!

Opening the door to a child’s imagination begins with a door.

What about your imagination?

{ Modern Door }

People often wonder what they can do with a kid’s safety door besides painting it a certain color or putting his/her children’s initial on it. The truth is, there is so much more that you can do to make your child’s door more creative than that.

We have come up with several concepts that can get your creativity going.

{ Castle }

{ Ivy }

{ Kids Club }

{ Sky Gate }

{ Classic }

{ Modern }

{ Modern Door Painted }

{ Classic Door Painted }

We found an article titled Jealous on Gizmodo.com.

Apparently someone really wanted our Magic Tree House room

Jealousy is the best form of flattery. Thanks so much for the compliment, Gizmodo!