Boys' Bedroom Renovation

I was just looking back through some previous posts and saw that I posted almost a year ago about our renovation of the boys’ room.  I was lamenting the loss of their cute baby/toddler decorations and realizing how much they are growing into independent little boys (ahem, young men).  I finished that post with a promise to follow-up with pictures of the new room.  As I continued to run through my previous entries from this last year, I realized I never did that!  Yikes!  I posted the pictures to facebook, but never blogged it.  
 

So, here we go.  All the photos as we built it, painted it and put it all together.  Big thanks to my hubby, who built the beds; and my grandpa who built the stairs with shelves.  

The boys decided they still wanted yellow walls.  I found some paint in the remainder section at Rodda for an excellent price and we got to work.

Next, since we were going to be building beds onto the walls, we decided to splurge and go ahead and do a much needed upgrade to the window in their room.  All of our windows are single pain, old sliders.  We want to upgrade them all but...$$$$.  This one window was $115 and well worth the peace of mind to have it in the boys' room.  The other window in their room now looks into our addition, so we ended up just putting a sheet of insulation over it and will hang a poster or something to cover that later.

I have to brag a little...I did the removal and installation mostly by myself (my mom came over to help lift the new window in--it was heavy!!).

 I wish I had pictures of the finished frames on the inside and outside.  It looks tremendously better, and of course, it's better insulated, and safer.

Joe built both of the boys' bunks.  We did Asher's up high like a loft bed.  Cainan's is a lower loft at a right angle.

We wanted to maximize unused space by having the beds up high--not using floor space.  That way we could use under the bed for storage & play.

Cainan has always slept with his dog, Bagel, in his bed.  Asher has always wanted to have his dog, Ozzy, sleep with him but dogs don't climb ladders.  For that reason, we decided to build stairs.  Again, trying to utilize space, we wanted the stairs to be shelves. 

 

 

The stairs were a success.

  

 Ozzy settled right in.

  

 Bagel had no issues either.

  

To complete the new theme for their room, we chose red and blue.  Once again, I found great deals in the remainder/mismatched paint at Rodda.

 I alternated the colors on their beds and the stairs.

There's plenty of storage under Cainan's bed for all their foam blocks.  Also, the stairs hook over the edge of Asher's bed, so they can slide as needed to make Cainan's bed, or get to stuff underneath, but I don't have to worry about them falling over on anything (or anyone!).  

I found some cute decals at the DollarTree.  I alternated the sports and space theme on the steps, too (come on, you gotta put space stuff on a blue background!). 

 The shelves and two chests of drawers fit under Asher's bed, instead of trying to cram all of that and their beds into their floor space.  The lifted beds made all the difference in storage and space.

I finished the whole thing off with some shelves up on the remaining space of Asher's bed.  I put some carpet squares that I got from the DollarTree, down on that end of the platform, as well.  It allows him a place to play and store a bunch of his toys.

I added shelves above Cainan's bed, too.

 

Altogether, I was able to consolidate all of their toys from their "play room" (which is supposed to be our guest bedroom), along with all their clothes and still have play area with plenty of storage.  We are very happy with the outcome and it should serve them well for years to come.

Saying Goodbye to my Toddlers, Only Four Years Late

Joe and I have recently been discussing the possibility of hosting an exchange student.  Part of that discussion meant how to take the two rooms our boys currently use: their bedroom & playroom and consolidating them into one, so we have a guest room.  I've been busy searching and Pinning bunk bed design ideas (if you're one of my Pinterest followers, this is no surprise).  I'm so excited to have a design in mind and we are ready to completely redo the boys' room!

However, as I contemplated my first step, removing all the current wall decorations from their walls, I had a moment of utter sadness at a time gone by.  When we bought and began remodeling this house I was pregnant with Asher and Cainan was not even two.  When we decided we would keep this house for ourselves (instead of flipping it), my mother-in-law and I came together to create the bedroom for the boys.  

I had a very distinct idea of what I wanted: primary colored

stick figure characters and simply drawn backgrounds.  I wanted to use them as accents, either in a wallpaper border or prints, here and there.  For some reason, I couldn't find anything that fit the bill.  We found an artist, Todd Parr, who drew exactly the kind of characters I was looking for but not in any home decor lines.  We did find a whole bolt of fabric on clearance at Wal-mart that happened to have his characters on it.  Crazy!

My mother-in-law took the fabric and unbeknownst to me, cut out a ton of the characters, roads, houses and other bright color blocks to make her own buildings.  She showed up with a tub of wallpaper paste and proceeded to make amazing murals all over the freshly painted yellow walls.  What resulted was an incredible city of silly characters, headed to school, the airport, the police station; riding in cars, trains and planes.  She even spelled out Cainan's name in the same fabric.  The room was incredible and even better than I had envisioned.

As I walked into their room two days ago with the excitement of starting anew, I realized how sad I was at the prospect of seeing those silly characters gone.  They've been here nearly eight years now.  They are part of the only bedroom Asher has ever known and the only one Cainan can remember.


I decided to take pictures of everything.  Even though they've held up remarkably well for something my mother-in-law was just going to "experiment" with, some have begun to pull away from the wall.  Cainan's name is missing the "C" and a few roadways are starting to fray.  I know it's time for them to go.  I know my boys are seven and nine...Cainan would probably enjoy them for a while longer but Asher probably wouldn't like the childlike images much more than five minutes--that boys is growing up and maturing so fast it makes my head spin.  And that's probably part of my sadness in seeing them go.


I have loved every moment of watching my boys grow, mature, learn and develop into the amazing people they are.  I haven't looked back much with loss or grief over previous stages.  I do not wish my boys were babies again, or (God forbid) toddlers!  Those were worthwhile, joyous but obnoxiously HARD years.  I love the ages they are now.  But walking into their room with a sponge in hand to wipe away the characters that have been a part of their lives for most of their lives gave my heart a wrench.  

I'm going to miss those silly characters.  I'm going to miss the reminder, each time I walk in the room of being pregnant with my precious Asher, painting walls and going over decoration ideas with my mother-in-law; holding little Cainan in my arms and showing him all the silly faces, the

airport where Daddy worked and the police station where Mommy worked (that's why my MIL included those buildings in the Silly City!!).  I'm thinking I might even shed a tear as I finally do take a sponge to those walls and wipe it all away.

In a few days they will be all gone and I'll be painting the walls with a fresh coat of bright yellow paint (the boys chose yellow again).  Their new bunk beds that we're building are going to be spectacular!  The new design of their room (including a new vinyl window to replace the old metal single pane) will improve their comfort, create so much space and efficiency.  I'm excited to see it come together and once I get going I know the moment of hesitation and grief will pass.  I'm glad I took these last few pictures and took the time to reflect.

I'll be sharing pictures of the new room as soon as it's done.