House Tour: Boy Bedroom #1

Sometimes I love a challenge, sometimes I hate being challenged, but Pumpkin and Peanut’s bedrooms were on the list of challenges I enjoyed.  Welcome to Pumpkin’s room.  I figured since his birthday is just around the corner, we’d share his room next on the house tour.  His room is often full of creativity, and he spends a good portion of his time either reading books in bed or drawing pictures of his inventions at his desk.

Before we moved in, I told the kids that they could pick the colors they wanted for their new bedrooms.  I admit, it was part of my scheme to get them psyched about moving.  They were excited to be moving to the country, but sad to be leaving their old rooms, their old friends and neighborhood behind.  Pumpkin could just barely remember the apartment that we lived in prior to moving to our first house, so all of their memories at that point were at the old house.  I figured letting them be involved in the planning of their bedroom makeovers was only fair, that it would help them get excited, and that it would make the transition go a little more smoothly for us.

I was right, my bribe did help a bit, the only downside was that we weren’t able to get their rooms painted right away.  Pumpkin’s room wasn’t painted until January, over 3 months after the move.  There was a lot of “when will you paint my room?”  I have to say, once their rooms were finished, I heard a lot less moping around about missing the old house.  Some of that probably had to do with the fact that they were adjusting, but I’m sure having their rooms decorated the way that they wanted helped!

Okay, well, you see…Pumpkin and Peanut had their hearts set on two colors each for their rooms, and both picked very BOLD colors.  I really, really wanted to tell them “No,” but instead I told them that I would think about it, and if I couldn’t come up with any good ideas, we’d have to revisit their color choices.  I never would have chosen these color schemes, but I think we made it work in the end!

Pumpkin chose a dark teal and sort of a hunter green for his room.  I had plans for his furniture…Polyshades could make all of his furniture match…only it ended up being darker than I planned.  But he loved it, so I think we’re good.  The only thing I was adamant on for his room was that he have white curtains.  He wanted camo ones or ones like Peanut has in his room, but I insisted that he have white.  Both colors he chose for his walls are D.A.R.K.  His room is on the north side of the house near the “forest” with just one window, so his room was already pretty dark and I wanted to bring in as much light as I could.

Most of the rooms upstairs have sloped ceilings, and I opted to keep both the top and the slope white, so that we could keep the rooms as bright as possible.  Then to help break up the bold colors that he chose for his room, I added a grey/white/grey stripe around his room between the two main colors to help add a little more light.  The floors were already grey, and since they weren’t in terrible shape and I had grey in the stripes, I figured I could just leave them as is.  (He’s a bit of a messy kid, and there is no way that he’d keep white floors white.)  He and I did talk about painting a large chess board on his floor, and I would make some over-sized chess pieces and possibly checkers for it as well….that might happen around Christmas time, but don’t tell him that!

Like I said, I used Polyshades on his furniture to get the pieces to coordinate better.  The dresser was the most work of the three.  I had to sand it all down to refinish it, fix some of the drawers, paint the drawer faces, and replace all of the hardware.  There were also some legs and scroll work on the dresser that were too “frilly” for his room, so I cut all of that off as well.

The desk was easier since it has some removable face pieces that allow you to change the fronts of the drawers to several colors, one set being black and white, which was perfect since it tied in with the dresser and with the room.  All of the old knobs were wooden and constantly falling off, so I replaced those with knobs to match the dresser.

His bed was the easiest of the three pieces to refinish.  I’m really glad that I used that stuff on his furniture.  If you look up close at any of it, you will see that the finish is far from perfect, but I was working with some pretty imperfect pieces of furniture.  I used the Polyshades on the frame of his bulletin board to help it look less out of place.  He swiped an old end table from somewhere in the house and is using that as a nightstand.  His lamp was a Christmas gift from his Godmother (she made the lampshade to coordinate with his room).

The bookshelf was built out of old barn boards and stained to coordinate with the rest of his furniture, and it was one of the last parts of the room to be completed, right before E was born.  Right now he has Doodle’s dresser in his room because Doodle seems to think that it’s fun to pull clothes out of dressers and then climb them…

The picture hanging above his bookshelf is a print we gave him for his birthday last year.  It’s of the patent for the original Lego man.  He loves Legos and inventing, so it seemed like the right piece for his room.

Next to the door, he has a coat rack that I made of a pair of antlers that were left here with the house (his idea).  I stained a section of barn wood, drilled some holes into the antlers, and mounted them to the board.  (If you ever decided to drill into a bone or antler for any reason, make sure you wear a mask and work in a well ventilated area…don’t worry, I did, but it’s stinky and dusty.)  The painting is of the elephant I made for him before he was born.

The way his room is arranged in these pictures is not the way I originally arranged his room.  He ended up moving everything a few times before settling on this arrangement.  There are often posters from his latest Lego or Ranger Rick or Popular Mechanics magazines pinned to the wall, but they rarely stay up for more than a week.

I had taken the kids out to JoAnn Fabrics one day to look for some fabric for the back of Miss Lady’s bookshelf, and he picked out the deer head flannel as something he wanted to use in his room.  I couldn’t use it on the back of his bookshelf like he wanted, but I figured I could make a quilt or something.  It ended up being the perfect thing for is room.  His room is one of the coldest in the house, and like his daddy, he likes to bury himself in the biggest, warmest blankets he can find.  The quilt top is all flannel blocks, and the back is one of those plush blankets that matches the teal on his walls really well.  I was busy and overwhelmed at the time, so my mom helped me out by quilting the two layers together (which was not as simple as it would have seemed since the plush blanket was so stretchy).

Well, there you have it.  I think I’ll go over how I did the stripes when I give you the tour of Peanut’s room (they have similar stripes).

I know I talked about doing room makeovers on a budget, but I have to say that this wasn’t really one of those.  I used birthday and Christmas giftcards, and had to scrounge together cash where I could to get the job done, which is why it took until January to get it completed.  I think this room and Peanut’s room were the rooms I spent the most money on, most of the rest of the house has been done with leftovers, things given to us by family and friends, and only occasionally a gallon of paint.  Even so, this didn’t break the bank to do.  Most of what I spent was on the quilt, the rest was on paint, tape, varnish, hardware, curtains and a curtain rod.

Sorry the pictures aren’t better.  It’s hard to take good pictures in rooms that have pretty bad lighting!  What do you think?  Did I pull it off?  I wish I could figure out how to get the pictures of the house from the listing on here…they really accentuate just how different everything looks!

To visit the other rooms that I’ve shown, click the links below:

• Miss Lady’s Room
• The Kitchen