Barris and Kensington's Story

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Barris and Kensington are two darling little boys. With big hearts and even bigger hugs, these two little boys have an exuberance for life and having fun!  The first time we met this family we felt the love - not just with the hugs but in the way the family interacted! We couldn't wait to get started.

These two boys were nominated for a room makeover by their teacher at Sunny Days. The Sunny Days Early Childhood Program serves this family by providing early intervention services to ensure both children meet their developmental milestones.  The nomination spoke volumes about this family and the pure love, commitment and pride the family holds for both of their children.  Barry, Dad, and Iris, Mom, are committed to providing the best enviroment for their children to grow and thrive.  After recently moving into a newly purchased home, Barry built a tree out of styrofoam in his effort to create a therapeutic room that would promote creative play and wide use of imagination. Cecily's Closet and its All-Star  team came together to build upon this idea and produced two, amazing and dynamic rooms for Barris and Kensington.
Why is getting a room makeover so important?  Because children need a special place to grow and thrive.  There are thousands of children with special needs in San Diego. Raising autism awareness is an even more important task now that one in 110 children in the United States are on the autism spectrum. While an increase in healthcare professionals’ knowledge about autism spectrum disorders and how it manifests in children may be responsible for the increase in reported autsim rates, it is not the sole reason. 

Thank you to our generous donors for making Barris and Kensington's "Sweet Dreams" makeover come true!

2 Rooms! The Rocking Garage Bedroom 

The Amazing Therapy Space

Together the Cecily's Closet Dream Team combined great ideas, with great teamwork to tranform two spaces for two little boys that spend a lot of time in their home. The custom made bunk beds with faux-paint, built to look like a garage is the perfect play place for two boys who love cars!   The dinosaur room, with its calming green color, is a fun and inviting place for the children to explore their environment, learn and most importantly, have fun!

Thank you to our All-Star team and TVIA Volunteers for helping to make Barris and Kensington's Sweet Dream Room Makeover a reality!

San Diego Home & Garden Features Us!

Check out this article  that features Barris and Kensington's rooms! 

Thank You to our Partners

Thank you to PaintGreen, for painting not one but two rooms for this extreme makeover!  As usual, they arrived on time and demonstrated their excellent skills with perfect paint jobs and wonderful customer service.  Thank you to Dunn Edwards for donating the paint. PaintGreen's perfect paint jobs set a beautiful backdrop for the talented artist, Emily Dolton of Inside Emily Dolton's Head!   Emily not only came up with the concepts for both rooms, she  painted an amazing dinosuar mural, managed our army of teen volunteers from Teen Volunteers in Action (TVIA) and added a faux-finish to the dream bed for Baris and Kensington!

Teen Volunteers in Action is an organization of young men who, together with their families, participate in structured programs of volunteerism, philanthropy and personal development. TVIA believe that through volunteer projects like Cecily's Closet, that these young men will grow up to become strong community leaders. We had about fifteen teens help with every aspect of the room – from painting, to cleaning, decorating to shopping.  They were well mannered, very respectful and excellent helpers!

And last but certainly not least, we welcomed a newcomer to the team, Ryan McDaniel of McDaniel General Contracting.  Ryan custom-built the amazing garage bunk bed pictured below.  He knew that the room was small and that  we wanted to maximize play space!   An off-the shelf bunk bed from a retailer was out of the question for these boys!  With safety in mind, he built a bed that was not only FUN-ctional it was FUN!  He crafted real stairs to eliminate the risk posed by ladders and built a bed that will grow with both boys from toddler to tween!  Ryan does all types of home renovation and remodeling: interior and exterior and we're excited to have him on the team.