Tag Archives: Kids Room

Pre-teen Boys Room: Getting Started

My son is about to turn 12 and updating his room has been on our radar for awhile now.

When we finished my daughter’s tween room last spring, he was still pretty content with his room, but I think the wheels started turning in his head.  By August, he was begging for a room update.  Not only did I not have a budget for his room at that time, but the busy school & holiday season was just around the corner and planning a room takes time.  So, he was told we would have to wait until at least January to get started. 

Even so, I got started drawing up some tentative plans for his room right away.  Money, time or not the ideas started flowing for a pre-teen boys room!  

preteen boys room ideas

I blogged about pre-teen room ideas here.

On New Year’s Day he was reminding me about his room.   When were we going to get started?  

Needless to say, I couldn’t put him off any longer.  It was time!

I told him we would have to finalize our plans before we could start painting or buying anything.  Here’s what we came up with:

preteen boys room

 

We’ll be using most of what he already has.  I’ll re-paint his walls, stain his existing dresser and side table.  I’ll also add new hardware.  I’ll paint the desk I bought for him on Craig’s list over a year ago and add a few new touches.

He adores soccer and is a huge fan of Lionel Messi and team Barcelona.  We found two posters that he wants to add to his walls. 

I’m planning to spend about $300 -$400 on the entire room — the biggest expense will be bedding.

The plan is to create a room that will last all the way through high school.  And, I think with this design, it will. 

The walls and bedding are pretty basic and his tastes and likes can easily rotate in and out.

He is dying to get started and so am I!

Keep checking back for progress reports and project updates.

Thanks for reading!

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Favorite DIY Projects of 2013

Christmas is over and I’m itching to get started on some new projects.  But, first, I wanted to go back to see a little of what I accomplished in 2013.

favorite projects 2013

Here’s a quick re-cap of some of my favorite makeovers and projects this past year:

1.  Tween Girl’s Room Makeover:

tween room reveal2

My daughter and I worked on this room together — she had a lot of ideas and her own, unique style.  We took our time getting this room together and we both love the results.  

We painted the walls a pale lavender, made a lot of the wall art and other details ourselves and decorated a lamp shade with ribbon.  We had a lot of fun!

I have to confess, we have updated her room slightly since this reveal — we got her a new twin bed with a trundle this fall and she added a couple of posters of the band, One Direction.  As with the initial makeover, we have worked together to make it all fit and work together.  It’s so cute!  I haven’t shared the updates yet on the blog but I will soon!

 2.  Dining Room Re-do

dining room_2

Without question, this room is my favorite in our whole house!  And, like most of my room re-do’s, my dining room came together slowly with a lot of DIY projects — the chairs, the china hutch and the grandfather clock.  

dining room_3

The time and effort was totally worth it.  The room reflects so much of my personality without leaving out my husband’s taste and I love that about it!

3. Library Chair Makeover

library chair

 

Who knew such a small and impromptu project would make me so happy?!  

This chair was sitting in my attic getting dry and dusty.  On a whim, I decided to bring it in to my foyer to change things up a little.  With a little Annie Sloan Chalk Paint and a new cushion and pillow I made myself, it turned into a cute little piece that is pretty and functional!  

4.  Master Bedroom Update 

master bedroom peek wm

 

I didn’t do a lot to update our master bedroom this year…just a two new pillow shams and a couple of little decorative pieces to freshen it up a little.  It’s amazing how just a few simple touches can make a space feel new, isn’t it?!

5.  Organizing My Master Closet

organize your closet

 

Even more than a well-decorated space, I love an organized space.  

Embarrassingly, I had really let my master closet get out of control.  One of the pitfalls of having a large space (and not a lot of storage space) is that it becomes a dropping zone and a great place to hide things when company comes.  

I purged and cleaned and got my space looking and feeling great.  And, even if you have a small closet that isn’t a walk-in, you can still use my organizing  principles to create a great, clutter-free space of your own!  

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As usual, I’ve got a long list of organizing, DIY and makeover projects on my list for this year and I’ll be sharing it with you soon.  

Thank you so much for reading this blog, taking the time to comment and for allowing me to get to know you.  This blog has been such a blessing to me in so many ways and I am grateful to be able to come here each week and share my love of all things home!

Happy New Year!

Julie

 

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Updating My Daughter’s Room

I mentioned at the end of 2012, that I still needed to finish up the room re-do I started for my daughter last year.

She’s about to turn 8, and she’s growing up way too fast.  She likes peace signs, animals, her iPod Touch and everything that is bright and sparkly.  She doesn’t really play with toys anymore and she is an avid reader.  She really is becoming a “tween” already — yikes! 

Before we painted her room last year, it was pink and looked like this:


She thought it looked too “princess-ey” and “baby-ish” and she wanted it to look more grown up. 

She wanted lavender.  Actually, she wanted bright purple, but I convinced her a light lavender would be better and we could go bright with accessories. 

She agreed to trust me and we painted the room lavender, bought a new bedspread, made new curtains and that’s about as far as we got. 

We’re still not completely done, but the room is really starting to come together.  Here are a few sneak peak photos to give you a taste of what’s to come. 

She is loving it and is sooo excited!  I think the room fits her personality perfectly and I’m anxious to see the final result, too!

We still have a few finishing touches before it’s all done.  We’ve created many things from Goodwill finds and even updated Hobby Lobby items to fit the color scheme.  Most everything we’ve gotten was on sale or free from our attic. 

Just to give you a taste of what we’ve done, the cute puppy picture above looked like this before:

It was $12 at our local Goodwill.  Originally, I was going to paint the frame and make a LOVE or PEACE wall decor.  But, my daughter had a puppy poster she bought from the school book fair that was getting all frayed on the corners from falling off the wall one too many times.  The little puppy had a gold tag on it’s collar that matched the frame perfectly, so we decided to keep it as is. 

I cut out the puppy and put it on some pretty wrapping paper I found at Wal Mart for just a couple of bucks.  I put it in the frame and VOILA! 

This cute little caddy from Hobby Lobby was an adorable shape, but the garden dragonfly design wasn’t really right for the room.

So, I bought some pink polka dot scrapbooking paper and traced the shape of the box on the back of the paper.  Then I cut it out and used Mod Podge to glue it over the dragonflies.  That was it!

I think it’s so cute!  And, it holds her diary, iPod, ear buds, flashlight, etc. and sits on the night stand next to her bed.

We also made this little picture out of a frame we already owned and scrapbook paper I had on hand.

I simply printed out a peace sign I got from Microsoft Word’s clip art and cut it out with my Exact-o knife.  I used an Elmer’s glue stick to adhere it to the blue paper and then put it in the frame.

All of these projects were so easy and inexpensive.  We were even able to work on them together!

We are so excited her room is almost done!  Now her big brother wants a makeover – ha! 

See…decorating is addicting!  Haha.

I’ll be back soon with a complete room reveal.  I hope you’re enjoying your weekend!

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