I know, I know: you haven’t been able to sleep lately because you haven’t seen any photos of my kids dressed up in costume. Okay, fine, twist my arm.

That guy in the giant superman pajamas in the top left photo? That would be the only adult in costume at that particular trunk-or-treat event: my husband, who simply does not possess the “embarrassment” gene. You cannot shame him. That’s my theory, which I’m testing by posting this photo.

The kids were adorable, naturally, with Weston getting eaten by a hammerhead shark and Mila saying “Trick or treat please, meow-meow,” and then asking all the people handing out candy, “can I please have some more?” after she got her first handful of candy. (To my embarrassment.)

(But not Andy’s.)

Let’s talk more about the safe house! We’re making over this bedroom which will house victims of sex trafficking for a short time until they transition to a permanent home for rehabilitation and safety.

This is the room “before:”

The safe house is a long drive from my house, so I actually hadn’t been in the room since taking that photo. We commissioned these amazing quilts from a talented and generous friend of mine:

And then decided to hang them on the walls:

And paint the walls pink:

Next to plan: bedding!

Our concerns about bedding were:
1. Keeping it from feeling like a hotel, which is a request the Out of Darkness team made, based on what these ladies have been through.
2. Comfort and texture!

The Out of Darkness folks asked us to make the room cozy and comfortable: nothing too pristine or fragile. In my mind, cozy and comfortable means lots of texture: fabrics you want to run your hands over. Remember when we made this DIY pintuck duvet for Carrie’s flash-mob surprise makeover?

I was thinking something along those lines: tons of texture, floofiness and coziness. With all the pattern and color in the quilts, we thought we needed to do something more solid-colored on the bedding to keep things from getting too fun-house.

I found this duvet set from Ikea. It’s the Ofelia Vass set. Don’t you want to touch it, then snuggle up and nap all day inside it?

Or maybe that’s just me, always wanting to take a nap.

I liked the idea of white, both visually (a place for your eyes to rest) and functionally (easy to bleach and keep clean for the people who run the safe house).

What I didn’t love was the idea of all white bedding, because I thought that might lean too much toward “hotel.” We decided to bring in a little pattern and whimsy in the sheets and accent pillows.

We loved these pillow options:

Society6 Creation in Color pillow

Society6 You are So Loved pillow, designed by Katie Daisy
Those pillows are designed by the same artist who made the “Love” print over the crib in Mila’s nursery.

I love her stuff, and we loved the message of the pillows for this room! We were worried they might be a little too busy for this room, so we kept looking…
You are so Loved pillow by August Ink Design Co on Etsy
Society6 Colors 201 Pillow
…and ultimately landed on these:
Society6 Hello Love Throw Pillow
I thought they’d be sweet and quirky, not too serious and not too busy. The people at Society6 agreed to donate them to the safe house! Woohoo!

With those decisions made, I made my first trip back to Safe House since we started planning this project. The Out of Darkness team had painted the room for us, so this was also my first time checking out the color:

(That’s just a crappy phone pic I took to send to Erin, because I got ALLLL the way to the Safe House without realizing I had no memory card in my camera!)

Fortunately, I thought the color was perfect! Just enough peach to keep it bright and happy. Just enough color to make it cozy. Feminine and soft, but sophisticated.

Oh! One more thing to show you! We still needed a dresser and all our craigslist hunting was so far unfruitful. I posted a request for a dresser on one of those Facebook yard sale boards in my area, and a very sweet local lady offered to donate this beauty:

She just gave it to us! People are awesome. The dimensions were SPOT ON, and I thought the double banks of drawers would be perfect for the ladies to share.

And with all that in place, all that remained was to put it all together and see if it, you know, actually worked in real life. More to come!

How was your weekend? What would you do if you had no embarrassment gene?