Davan's Project

Over the last couple of weeks, Davan has been working on redecorating her room.  It started with her asking me if I'd be interested in going to IKEA with her.  She said if not, she'd be fine with riding Trimet up there (a bus/MAX train combination trip).  I was up for it, though, so up we went to roam about a bit.  We ended up spending a lot less them there than anticipated, but we had a good discussion about what she was wanting to do and that, more than anything, helped with ideas and planning.

She came out of IKEA having verbalized that she really wanted a travel/geographical theme to her room.  She wasn't going to change anything but the decorations on the walls.  She was working with a pretty strict budget because she was financing this endeavor and is currently saving all the money she can to fund future trips to Switzerland (we're paying for her flight when she goes in February, but she wants to go more often than we feel we can afford). 

We'd come up with the idea of using an old map as picture frames.  She'd known already that her corner piece would be a world map.  She was debating, though, between a few different things to round it all out.  One was buying four or so cheap analogue clocks from IKEA and setting them to different time zones.  Another was getting posters of various cities from around the world. 

She knew, though, that she was going to use the map idea and wanted different pictures for her wall.  So, her first investment was making ten prints of pictures.

She planned out use of the whole map, cut out frames, then mounted them all on cardboard for a sturdier look.

Next was her biggest splurge, which was buying a large, up-to-date world map for her wall.  She looked around for this in a few different places.  She really liked a huge canvas one from IKEA, but, at $150, that was out of her budget.  Plus, she decided she wanted one that was laminated so she could write on it with a dry erase marker.

We went to Powell's last weekend and she picked up this beauty.  She was very excited to get it up, finally, yesterday.

She decided that, rather than buying clocks, she'd use supplies we had on hand and make distance signs.  She'd originally thought she'd mount them on a post with arrows, but ended up deciding to put them on the wall in the direction of the city.

She used a white gel pen on black foam board for the signs.  She only had enough material for ten signs, which made it difficult for her to decide how to scale back from the 24 cities she'd researched distance on.  Some were no-brainers, though.

Here she is, this morning, preparing to mount her last city sign.

This wall has a picture of her Tadku (my step dad) and Ranger as well as the distances to Montreal and Paris.

Here we have the distance to Colorado Springs along with a picture of Anthony and Ranger.

This is the Do Jump wall...where she wanted to also put the distance to Do Jump, but decided to stick to more distant points, so the sign is to Beijing.

This corner experienced a bit of change in that Davan put up some of the fabric that had been curtains on the sides of her large drawing as a cover to hide the mess of wires for the stereo and lamp.

This distance sign was one of the obvious choices.

There are more pictures and distances, but that gives you a general idea.

Davan is really happy with how her room turned out, feeling that it's a better reflection of her and her current interests.  I'm happy she was able to come up with a room that makes her happy from planning to completion pretty much all on her own.  I wouldn't be too surprised, though, if more city distance signs were to make an appearance before too long.