Reclaiming Adult Space

Julia is an artist extraordinaire. She is constantly working on her 'projects' in her play area, cutting and taping, and drawing and glittering, and wrapping... She brings projects home from school every day. She makes projects at home every day. Our small Brooklyn apartment is overrun with art, notes, pictures, and projects. AND, she wants to post these projects all over our home. She gets out her tape and tapes them up in the living room, her playroom, the kitchen, her bedroom, our bedroom, even the bathroom has displayed an occasional piece of her art.

This weekend Dave and I made a small effort to reclaim a little space of our own, moving some display shelves from her play area to the dining area of our living room (yup, no dining room, no living room, this is NYC we are talking about, where real estate is a premium), and putting up an art gallery wall in her play area. She insisted on having it written in German (a nod to our bilingual household) so it says "Cates-Addison Art Gallery" on the wall.

Compromise achieved. Our dining area now looks like a dining area, free of the 30 pieces of paper scotch taped to the wall, and her play area has a designated space for us to oohhh and ahhhh over all of her masterpieces...