After sharing the full tour of Nora’s brand new bedroom a couple weeks ago and getting Simon and James all situated in their “new” bedroom, I figured it was finally time for a blog tour of the boy’s room!
Some of you might remember that we did a big renovation of this bedroom right before Simon was born (3.5 year ago already). It was originally Nora’s “big girl bedroom” so Simon could move into the nursery on the main floor.
Then, last summer, Simon moved into this room with Nora and they had a super fun boy-girl shared bedroom.
These two Yahoos absolutely LOVED sharing a bedroom together… but since Nora will need to wake up earlier for school this coming year and James needs to move out of the nursery before September, it just seemed to make sense to give Nora the new bedroom to herself and bring James up to share a room with Simon.
It’s been about a month since the boys have been sharing a room, and although the first 2 nights were pretty rough, things are going really well now and the boys love sharing a room together.
Before I give you the tour, I need to mention that I spent LESS than $5 on this bedroom makeover!!
Yeah… I’m pretty proud of that fact 🙂
There’s a chance we might try to buy some sort of changing table for this room (since I’ll most likely be up here with the new baby a lot) but we haven’t found one we like enough to buy it… so at this point, our out-of-pocket expenses are less than $5 — not too shabby!
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Everything in this room was either repainted, repurposed from something we already had in the house, or simply rearranged — and I honestly feel like the room looks and feels so different.
I originally felt a little guilty that Nora’s new bedroom was such a massive transformation compared to the boy’s room, but when I brought Simon up to show him his “new” room, he was SOOOOOO excited. He immediately started running around the room pointing out every single thing that was different. He loved all the little details, and I loved that $5 (and several hours of work on my part) could make him so happy!
Why Did Nora Get The New Room?
Some of you have asked why we moved Nora to the new bedroom instead of Simon and James, and honestly, it’s simply because the boy’s bedroom is the biggest room in the house — quite a bit larger than Nora’s new room and much larger than either bedroom downstairs. It just makes sense that the 2 people who share a room should get the biggest rom.
Plus, the boys will be home much more than Nora will for the next couple of years, so having a bigger room for them to play in also makes more sense to me.
And finally, Nora’s bedroom has TONS more closet space than the boys room — and considering we might eventually have 2 girls in Nora’s room, extra closet space will be nice.
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The Tour…
The is the view as you walk into the room. We rotated Simon’s bed 90º so it runs along the far wall instead of the side wall. This gave us more room for a chair and little lamp by James’ crib.
Simon said he wanted a “fire truck room” — which I figured would be fairly easy to achieve since half the furniture in my house is red! Also, Dave’s mom had already made the boys matching quilts with red, navy, and grey stripes.
However, when I found these 2 framed prints at our local thrift store (for $1.50 each) I knew they would be the perfect addition to the boy’s bedroom!
We used the white dresser to sort-of block Simon’s view of the crib. Even though he’s a very sound sleeper, we figured it wouldn’t be bad to have a little extra distance between the boys!
And speaking of the white dresser, it holds the majority of the boys’ clothing.
The bottom drawer has all Simon’s clothes (so he can reach them on his own). The next drawer holds clothes that are too small for Simon but too big for James. The 2nd drawer holds all of James’ clothing. And the top drawer has diapers, wipes, an extra changing pad cover, and an extra crib sheet.
Here’s a look at the dresser without all the text.
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James is still in his crib — which I sort of like. He loves his crib and I like that he’s confined to one place and can’t get up and roam in the middle of the night!
We have 2 cribs, so he may gladly stay in his crib for several more months if he wants. And when the time comes for him to move into a big boy bed, there is plenty of space for that bed right where his current crib is (we’d need to get rid of the chair).
As you rotate around the room and look back at the door, you can see where the closet is in relationship to the rest of the room.
Those 2 framed sketches above the toy cabinet were my other purchase for this room ($0.75 each — and they totally match my color scheme!)
I do have a set of 3 white canvases I want to try to paint for the skinny wall above the tool bench (to the right of the closet) but I’ve never painted canvas before and I’m not really sure what I want to paint anyway!
The area inside the closet is fairly awkward. It has sloped ceilings and not much useful storage — but plenty for our current needs.
We can eventually install another clothing rod (or more shelves), but for now, I like having the bottom of the closet open for extra toys, or even for the boys to “hide out”!
The wall opposite the beds is where we keep the majority of the toys in their room (because you can’t see this area right away when you walk into the room!)
Keep in mind that our entire kitchen set, all our dress-up clothes, and all the dolls are in Nora’s bedroom. So the boys mainly just have their cars, a bunch of balls and blocks, musical instruments, all our Little People things, and James’ beloved magnet board in their room.
I think my favorite part of both the upstairs bedroom renovations is that we were able to go through ALLLLLLLL our toys, dolls, animals, dress up clothes, etc. and purge several bags of stuff the kids weren’t playing with anymore. And considering how much EXTRA storage we created in both bedroom, the play area at the top of the stairs is now 100% empty!
Right now, we’re just using the floor space in that room for extra play space, but no toys are actually stored in that area — so at night, it’s completely empty. We have some ideas for this space… which I’ll share more about in another post!
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So that’s the tour of our boys’ bedroom — nothing super fancy or amazing, but definitely a change from before, and definitely on a really great budget! 🙂
A Few Before and After Photos:
The very purple pictures are from the day we moved into the house. Then, there’s a picture of what the room looked like when Nora “moved in” 3 years ago, and finally the current “after” photo of the boy’s shared room.
Wow — I’m glad that purple is gone!
Wendy says
The bedrooms look great.
Dana says
It looks amazing! But GIRL, how do you manage with WHITE carpet in a bedroom for littles?! I can’t even keep ours nice with only two adults in the house >:(
Andrea says
haha — it’s not white, it’s light cream 🙂 And it has flecks in it so the dirt just blends right in!
Also, we really never have food or craft supplies upstairs so there’s not much to spill. Our entire upstairs is this exact carpeting (for 4 years now) and we’ve had no issues!
Kristen says
Maybe on the canvases, you could tape down a cut-out of a firetruck or whatever else and let the boys finger-paint over top of it with coordinating colors, then remove the cut-out? Though it might have to be a big sticker or vinyl cut-out in order to not get paint underneath of it … I’ve seen it done with tape and the child’s initial but that would be hard to make a firetruck out of tape, haha.
Kristen says
PS: The room looks great, I forgot to mention that 😉
Andrea says
Thanks!! And yes, I think a fire truck out of tape might be a little out of my creative comfort zone 🙂
Lisa Walters says
I’ve always loved the kids names on their walls. I would love to do this for my granddaughter. I’m sure you’ve probably shared before how/where you got the names, but you mention that again.
Love your blog. I always seem to get an”Aha” moment out of many of your posts.
Andrea says
yes, they are from the Pop and Lolli Etsy shop: https://www.etsy.com/shop/popandlolli
JJ says
I like how the curtain, pillow(on chair), and sham all match! I love how practical you are with your decorating, and it looks user-friendly and appealing to the eye!
Deborah says
I like how you store the clothing in their drawers. Makes it easy to see all the options and pull something out! Love the quilts too!
Jeanine says
This room looks like so much fun for little boys, and I’m sure that they will have a great time in their room! You have so many good ideas, and I always recommend your blog to Moms of littles as well as new wives, really just about everybody, lol! Your family is beautiful, btw.
I do have a suggestion from the gift-giving blog post a few days ago. Great ideas as always, but as a Mom of adult children about your age, I would say that most parents do like to be remembered on their birthdays, no matter how old they are. I know that you probably do many things for your parents anyway, but I always feel disappointment when my grown children forget my birthday. Granted, gifts are my love language, so I can’t help but go all out on their birthdays, and somehow, expect the same, though I tell myself not to. Also, I think you mentioned that you don’t usually get your grandparents anything for Christmas or their birthdays, and I recognize that they don’t need anything, but it’s the thought that counts, especially for grandparents, who often feel forgotten anyway. Please reconsider in these two areas. Having said that, you are a very special lady, and I admire you greatly and pray for your family that God will bless you and keep you and give you much joy!
Andrea says
Thanks Jeanine. I think the boys love their room!
As for the gift-giving… I think it greatly depends on the person. Our parents are not “gifters” and often don’t even get US anything for our birthdays — it’s just not a big deal for any of us. That said, I do believe I mentioned in the post that I always have the kids make a craft/drawing for their grandparents and great-grandparents and we bring them all baked goods on their birthday.
Debbie says
Wow! The transformation looks great and for only $5??!!! Amazing! I like all the floor space the boys have for spreading out their toys. If and when James is ready to switch to a big boys bed, it would even look better on the opposite wall where Simon’s bed is, mirroring the placement of Simon’s bed. They’ll still have plenty of space in the middle for playing. Oh, and the boys picture together with their big smiles are so cute! They look like they get along so well.
Andrea says
yes… lots of floor space for playing!!
As for the bed placement, it probably would make more sense to have the 2nd bed on the opposite side of the window — except for the fact that it will block the heating vent and/or heat would be blasting down on that sleeping child! It would definitely look nicer to have both beds on the window wall, but for practicality sake, we’ll probably keep both beds on the wall opposite the heat vents (where they are right now).
Debbie says
That makes sense. Vents makes furniture placements pretty tricky at times.
Mara Yager says
Looks so great!
Shelly Smith says
Looks great! I noticed the little fans that are secured over the boys’ beds (and maybe a third white one over the magnetic board area?!) Could you show an up close picture or explain more about how you secured them in that position? I like that idea, especially for 2 of my boys who sleep hot (and like you, our upstairs bedrooms are always warmer than downstairs!)
Andrea says
Yeah, the little fans are great — we literally just hang Simons from the hooks above his bed, and stuck a nail in the wall above James’ crib. The fans come with a little stand and the stand works perfectly to hang them by. These are the exact fans we have (although I got them for $5 from our grocery store)
Also, the white “fan” above the magnet board is actually their monitor 🙂
Jo says
Great room!
Where do you change James’ nappy at the moment? I remember you saying you used to always do it on the changer and never on the floor. Is it different now he is bigger?
Andrea says
We have a changing pad in their room — it’s just under the dresser. So we either put the changing pad on the bed or on the floor. We also still have our changing pad/table set up in the nursery on the main floor, so we change his diaper in there a lot too.
That said, he usually only goes through 3 diapers a day, so it’s not a big deal to change it when he wakes up, after lunch, and before bed. However, when the new baby comes, I’ll be changing diapers all day long and will most likely want some sort of elevated changing station upstairs. I still have 7-8 weeks to figure that one out though 🙂
Christy says
Cute rooms for all the kids! How about handprints for the canvas’? Here is and idea….
http://beckyhiggins.com/handprints-the-tradition/
http://beckyhiggins.com/handprints-display-ideas/
Andrea says
Thanks for the links 🙂 Our canvases are 12″ x 12″ so one handprint might look really small on that — but maybe I could do some sort of artwork WITH the handprint.
My original thought was to try to paint or decoupage a fire truck, ambulance, and police car onto the 3 canvases… but that seems too challenging for my limited artistic ability!
Edie S. says
It looks great! I especially love the quilt!
Susie says
Very nice!
Question: do your kiddos ever play with all the toys into their rooms when they’re supposed to be sleeping? We only have books in our boys’ rooms for that reason… But we’ve never really tried to store any toys in their rooms yet.
Do you still have toys in the family room/loving room?
Andrea says
nope, we’ve never had an issue with this at all. In fact, we store our things exactly the opposite of you — books in the living room (because that’s where we read) and all the toys upstairs in their rooms. We literally don’t have toys anywhere else but their bedrooms except for 1 basket of blocks in the living room.
We do also keep the games and puzzles in the living room because they often do puzzles on the kitchen table and they often need help from us to play the games. But all the toys are in their rooms.
Keep in mind, all our bedrooms are fairly large so there is tons of floor space to actually play with the toys in their rooms as well.
Susan says
Do you let them play upstairs alone frequently while you’re downstairs getting things done (cooking, cleaning, working etc)? Or are you normally with them when they’re upstairs? My son will play independently for about 20-30 minute chunks of time, but if I leave him alone upstairs he always seems to get into some kind of trouble–and it’s something new each week as he just seems to be curious. Last week he was climbing on his dresser (aaah! Danger!), the week before he was jumping on the spare bed (both things he’s never done before, at least to my knowledge). For this reason, I keep most toys downstairs so he can play on the same level I am on and I can easily peek in on him if I need to. He is almost 3.
Andrea says
yes, they play upstairs on their own all the time — but there are 3 of them, so it’s more fun than just one! And yes, they get into trouble, but that’s a risk I’m willing to take at this point 🙂
Roxanne says
Wow- for some reason I never noticed that skylight there before, but I guess looking back at the purple pictures it’s always been there! I remember thinking in earlier posts “that’s a lot of natural light from just one window” but I suppose that explains it 🙂 Glad they like their “new” room!
Andrea says
yes, the skylight has always been there. Not my favorite (definiteliy not “farmhouse”) but it does let a lot of natural light into the room! Also, painting the wall white instead of dark purple probably helps a bit too!!
Dakwerken says
Loved it! Boys bedroom makeover looks very pretty.