A few years ago I worked with The Land of Nod to create a beautiful and accessible bedroom for our two oldest girls, PSP and Lamp. The Land of Nod was so amazing to work with and the room has been one of my favorite spaces in our home ever since. Additionally, The Land of Nod also hosted a $500 gift card giveaway for This Little Miggy readers + special needs families. I was thrilled when winner Sar emailed me a few weeks ago to tell me that they had finally finished making over her son “Coe-Coe’s” room. You guys it looks amazing! Not only is the room beautiful, but I also loved the ingenious design solutions they came up with to create this safe and beautiful place for their son Coe-Coe. Good design can be used to solve so many problems. I especially love when I see good design + disability coming together to create beautiful and functional spaces. Here is Sar to explain a little about her son Coe-Coe, his needs and the process of his room makeover. You can see more over at her blog Snippets and Smiles.
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At 10 months old, “Coe-Coe” started having 100’s of seizures a day. His local Drs did not know what was causing them. We did a lot of research after hearing how amazing the Cleveland Clinic Epilepsy Unit was and decided to take him there when he was 2. We found out his brain didn’t fully form on the left side, which was missed by our local Children’s Hospital. He had brain surgery to remove his Left Temporal, Occipital & Parietal Lobes. He is now 8 years old and is non-verbal, as well as a lot of behavior and sensory disorders. Because of his behavior we wanted to create a Bedroom that was SAFE for him.
He doesn’t know how to process his feelings or tell us what he wants…so he head-bangs the walls, which creates GIGANTIC HOLES in the walls & also exposing the electrical wire…we had to come up with a solution FAST! We decided to reinforce the walls with Shiplap. After doing that, he hasn’t hit his head on the wall because it’s not as soft as dry wall.
Originally we were only going to Shiplap the 2 walls that had huge holes in them, but once we put the boarding up, “Coe-Coe” figured out that the walls were too hard to hit so he went after the other walls…so we needed to fix those as well. I didn’t want the whole room to be Shiplap, so we put boarding on the other 2 walls and added “texture” over it to look like a typical sheet rock wall. We also needed to board over the doors because he’s a smarty pants and figured out those were softer. Once we boarded his hole room and the surfaces we’re indestructible, he wasn’t interested in hitting his head anymore…so it actually solved the problem!
We are in LOVE with the way his room turned out!!!! Our family actually spends more time in his room then any other room now, and I think “Coe-Coe” likes that we are all gathered in his room.
He is a SENSORY SEEKING kiddo. His Occupational Therapist said he needs 3X the amount of a “Sensory Diet” then that of a typical special needs child. A sensory diet is basically creating a schedule of sensory activities (for Coe-Coe it is every 15min) to help them process typical everyday things in his environment (i.e. Wearing shoes & clothes or doing simple tasks like sitting in a chair or picking up a crayon & textures with food etc.) So we picked out things that would help calm him like textured blankets & pillows, The Land of Nod Tee Pee (we added lights to give eye stimulation & a calming effect, and the tee pee cocoons him and helps him feel safe. We also got a few baskets from The Land of Nod so we would have a place to put all of his soft goods, and making it easy for him to access anytime he wants.
When he gets agitated, it’s nice to have a place for him to go to, to calm down in. It’s our FAVORITE room in the house…I only wish the rest of my house was indestructible, organized and beautiful like his room–haha!
Amazing right? Thanks so much for sharing this wonderful transformation with us today Sar! So happy to see Coe-Coe has a safe and beautiful space all his own. And thanks to The Land of Nod for making this wonderful room possible! Any other special needs families come up with some ingenious design solutions? I’d love to hear in the comments below!
