Long long time ago we finished renovating our apartment. To be precise most of it was done in November 2014. Back then I wrote in that blog post that I wouldn’t show Nathan’s room yet as it wasnt ready yet. Seems like we took our sweet time getting his room ready as we just finished a bit over a week ago!
So what is so special about his room? Indeed it is a Totoro themed room as the title already suggests. In fact Nathan’s “babyname” was Totoro. By that name most people called him until he was a year old. After that his name slowly changed to RouRou 肉肉 thanks to his wobbly cheeks. We always wanted to create this kind of themed room but the main problem was to get all the stuff here in Germany. In the end we ordered everything in China and then brought it with us back to Germany last year. That is over 9 months ago and all the things were just stuffed in boxes until mother-in-law’s return was just days away. What she has to do with it? Well she wanted to stay in Nathan’s room, sleeping on a futon rather than having a real bed in another room. So we really were in a hurry suddenly to finish his room. Just a day before her arrival I put on the last pictures on the walls and drilled some holes for the shelves.
We are pretty happy with the result. Okay it is not a 100% Totoro themed room but who cares. I must say that the hardest part was to get that giant Totoro wall thingy attached as the wallpaper is not really the best underground. It took my wife and I over 3 hours to get that job done and still now I am all the time worried that it might fall off or Nathan wants to suddenly play with it. We bought so many different Totoro things that I don’t even know anymore how many there are. So far Nathan loves the room and always point at the Totoro on the wall and plays with the giant Totoro plush toy.
Have you ever thought of creating some special themed room?
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Crazy Chinese Family 
Parenting done right!
Hehe thanks 🙂
Wonder what the little one will think about it in later years, hope he appreciates it
He’ll definitely think “Arukou, Arukou, Watashi wa genki. Aruku no daisuki. Dondon ikou.” 😀
Haha, it is a great theme song. We watched every evening during my wifes pregnancy Joe Hisaishi in Budokan – Studio Ghibli 25 Years Concert https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X9mGQU7rGGM
🙂
Best room ever!!! Wish I grew up in a Totoro room
Thank you, such room would have been awesome for myself back in the day 🙂
The room looks amazing! (And I still haven’t seen the anime! Gaah~)
I wish I grew up in a themed room too, but my parents liked simplicity. My room actually had wooden panels and I couldn’t stick anything on them.
Oh, this reminds me of some show I happened to see one day. It was on room decoration or something. There were some people who redecorated a room; they made it Alice in Wonderland themed. It was stunning. Too bad I don’t remember the name of the show. T-T
Yeah I had also a very simple room back in the day. I remember covering the walls with anime posters such as Dragonball or Ranma 1/2 😀
The only poster I had was a McDonald’s Winx Club (and at that time I didn’t even see the cartoon and knew nothing about it) which I managed to stick onto the wall without any tape or glue. xD And yeah, eventually it fell off. (After I moved, haha.)
Oh well better than nothing 😉
I still got all my old posters hidden away in a cupboard in my former room (which has been transformed into a guestroom)
Wow, you both put your art themed imagination to work!
Thank you so much. It was really interesting to find all the decoration and to get it all together in a nice way in the room
Hope you preserve it for awhile. Imagine having a birthday party in there….by removing the crib temporarily.
And vacuuming after the party. 🙂
We will keep it until either Nathan does not like it any longer or we move to our future dream house 🙂
Hopefully for Nathan he’ll like it for another 5 years or more. Shhhhhhh. Don’t ask for his opinion too soon, yet. 🙂
I think (and hope) he will love it for some years to come as Totoro is really a great Anime and he will watch it in a couple of years to learn to love it as well 🙂
So cute! Never done a fully thematic room. I used to love watching “Trading Spaces,” though, and they did amazing rooms.
Thank you, I actually had to google trading spaces as it never aired in Germany/ Finland. It was really interesting to gather ideas and then the decoration for this themed room. We also thought about a Totoro bed but that would have been overkill I think.
I don’t think Nathan would have thought it was overkill!
Even though the wall thingy was difficult to attach, I’d say it’s worth it! The room looks amazing!! 👍
Thank you so much, we hoped that the room won’t only look good to us 😉
My parents were only like “okay, you managed good job” and that’s it :p
Wow! This looks so cute! I want to have a themed room too!
Haha thank you, you could consider a themed room for some future child 😉
Yes definitely! or for myself! if husband approves haha! I’m thinking of an owl-themed room. That owl carpet of yours is so cute! Is that from China too?
The carpet is actually from Germany from one of those many “Baumärkte”
Love it!
And I bet Nathan does too ☺️
I think it’s amazing and I hope to do a themed room for my future kids some day.
It is really interesting to make such room. Thankfully there are tons of totoro things available in China unlike here in Germany where they only have few overpriced items…
Are you sure it was a great move to finish the room BEFORE the crazy MIL arrived? She might have her own ideas with how to decorate the room and ruin all you have done, you know.
We made clear that everything is off limits in that room to her except the futon. In the kitchen she can do her madness stuff but not in his room 🙂
Now I am in fear as the new car is arriving tomorrow…two months earlier than planned 😦
Love it! You did a great job decorating. It is very cute.
Thank you. It is really great to hear that others like the room as well, so our decision wasn’t bad 🙂
This is soooo cute!! I have never done a themed room. Heck I haven’t even spent much time decorating our apartment. I used to think about all the things I would do and how cool everything would be, but when we finally got the apartment… half of the furniture was already here, and although I wouldn’t have chosen it myself I didn’t want to throw away furniture that was basically new. And painting the walls in different colors? Uf, who has time for that? And where would we live while the paint dries? Nah. I guess I am lazy.
BTW, did you know that your son has a wooden box of red wine on his desk??? xD
Such a beautiful room! Well done. So many colours and things all over. I can’t see how MIL would be entertained in this room…she doesn’t strike me as the type who likes cute and cuddly things.
The big Totoro thing stuck to the wallpaper looks just like that – a piece of sticker stuck to the wallpaper so I am not sure how it can that hard to get up there 😀
Oh well MIL didn’t know before that the room would look like this :p
The huge Totoro on the wall, well it consists of severeal big pieces which had to be aligned and besides that it had to be attached to the wall as a whole and then the plastic layer had to be slowly removed all the while trying the best not to rip off everything as the wallpaper is not really suitable
That big Totoro sounds like one massive puzzle, lol. Easier said than done. It looks seamlessly done and not a line out of place.
To get it done this well we needed all those hours. I am just happy it is done now 🙂
Just lovely for little Nathan. So cute!!
I really hope he will love the room once he will get to know the anime Totoro
I love his bedroom!!! I’m coming over to sleep in it!!!!!!! Zzzzzzz. xxoo
Haha, will be a problem as it is occupied by MIL now :p
NOoooooooo!
What a lucky boy!!! 🙂 i love it. Our baby room is Not very themed at all, we are still In the process of Working out how to best utilise the space. Crazy Chinese Family indeed 🙂
Well we did not even had a baby room when we lived in Finland and here in Germany it took over 1 1/2 years to get the room done 😛
That is an awesome room! He is one lucky little boy!
Thank you, I am really glad that we managed this one as we postponed it for a very long time (1 1/2 years)…
That’s awesome! I’ve never had a themed room, but now I want a Totoro-themed room too! Maybe I can turn our bedroom into one (though I’m not sure my husband will approve).
I guess you have to force him somehow or surprise him suddenly with a fully totoro themed bedroom 🙂
So cute!! It must not be easy to get them I imagine. Hopefully Nathan grows to like Totoro too…cos Totoro is just to cute to throw out..haha..did you keep any for your own room? I want a Totoro cushion too…hahaha
All of the totoro stuff is in his room :p
We has to buy everything from China as amaretto anything is available in Germany / costs a fortune here
That’s true, that was what I was thinking too..I know we can always depend on China for any supplies needed..hehehe 😄
The room is adorable! There are so many things for Nathan to look at and play with. I especially like the beautiful carpet. I learned something new today. I hadn’t heard of Totoro before.
I would say totoro is a generational thing and only part of them who like these kind of movies/ TV series. There are so many wonderful movies by that director of Totoro which really create a wonderful little world for the watcher.
The carpet was hard to pick as we wanted something which resembled a bit the theme of the wallpaper (many animals and tress there, especially owls!) somehow we were lucky and found one in a hardware store, yes hardware store, just a couple of driving minutes away
👌👏🙂
Such a fun looking room for little Nathan! Great job, his hard-working parents 🙂
I wish we would be more hard working when it comes to these things. Sadly we have too much work often so much household stuff gets postponed too often
I have never heard about Totoro, but now I have an idea. Lovely room!
Thank you, totoro is more famous for the younger generations. However the director also worked back then at one of the moomin animation series
What a cute theme for a kiddie room. 🙂
Thank you, I always wished in my childhood to have something like this. I hope Nathan will like it 🙂