Abe's Montessori-ish room

I love the idea of a Montessori or "yes" room - A room that is all baby-proofed, where things are designed to be fun and safe from the vantage point of a crawler or young toddler. Though a lot of these rooms utilize a "floor bed" and I did not feel comfortable with that quite yet...I borrowed the ideas of things at baby's eye level and only a few toys/books in their reach at once to reduce overstimulation. It seems to be working really well, so far! Here's a brief tour of our work-in-progress with some brief explanations of why :)

Amazingly hand-painted letters from my sister-in-law Kait! 

We attached them with 3M Velcro command strips...it's okay with me if he takes them down and looks at them/plays with them. We had this wall painted a darker blue because eventually I want to add a constellation map with fine lines of white paint and dots for stars. We have fuel oil for heat and the baseboard radiator really doesn't get all that hot. He doesn't seem super interested in it and mostly stays away from it. 

Uhhwha? 

Re-purposed TV stand from used furniture store. Doors from the bottom side cabinets were removed so he wouldn't pinch his fingers opening & closing them...though he found that super fun. Mirror & cool mist humidifier are safely out of reach, but he loves popping his head up and seeing his reflection. The fabric bins (giraffe: homemade, stars: $5 at Home Goods) keep toys he isn't playing with out of reach/out of mind, so he can really only get into the animals and toys on the bottom shelves. 

Really super cute canvas print of map of US at his eye level (it was cheap enough that we don't mind if he paws at it), and again more storage for out-of-use toys, diapers, blankets, etc. 

24" x 24" acrylic painting I made (again, at his eye level) of his favorite page of Nancy Tillman's "On The Night You Were Born". He giggles like crazy at this page every time we read the book and kisses the bear, so he loves being able to crawl right up and touch this too. In fact, he just woke up from his nap and he's giggling...I'd like to think it's either at this or his amazing storyboard by our friend Eric! It's right across from his crib

The above-mentioned amazing storyboard! Painted in watercolor for our baby shower gift from The Marlowes. It's the fully illustrated Dr Seuss "My Many Colored Days". He freaking LOVES the little yellow guy...especially the last picture! 

Bedtime stories! Crib bumper haters; It's breathable mesh. It's going to be okay.