I'm a Big Boy Now

Sorry about the blogging break.  A virus infected my computer while Computer Genius was away last week.  Luckily he's back and, living up to his name, has fixed my problem.  I spent the first chunk of the week working on this makeover and wailed when I realized I couldn't post about it.  We had purchased one of those convertible cribs that transitions from a crib, to a toddler bed, to a full sized bed when we were expecting Snuggle Bunny.  Something like this one.

We moved him up from the toddler bed to the full sized bed earlier this year, but hadn't really transitioned his room from the nursery decor to more of a "Big Boy" decor.  His nursery had been decorated in Snuggle Bugs(I originally refered to him as Snuggle Bug, but that quickly morphed into Snuggle Bunny and that's the name that stuck.)  I went nuts with buying up all of the Snuggle Bug decor in the baby shop.  I bought the bedding, valances, lamp, mobile, and border.

I even cut out bugs from the leftover border to scatter on the walls.  I love this one crawling along his window.

The first step in the decor update was interviewing my "client."  SB told me that he wanted to be a skateboarder, or maybe a snowboarder when he grows up(Don't worry, Dad, he's now decided an astronaut or architect would be much more practical, but he still loves boarding.)   SB was also very clear that orange is still, and will always be his favorite color. 

Naturally, we also needed to construct a budget for this remodel.  We wanted to keep this redo under $150(excepting the new mattress and boxspring.)  SB had some great pieces to work with.  His bed was a quality piece, his bookcase was a classic shape and a great height for him, his toy chest was constructed by Computer Genius and hand-painted by yours truly and would be staying, and his carpeting was custom cut and bound for his room and would be staying.

With this as a jumping off point, I started looking for affordable bedding that would work.  I looked and looked and looked.  The fact that we would be keeping the green rug and incorporating orange into the room was making the bedding search difficult.  It was time for a trip to the fabric store.  SB picked out some great flannel and chintz fabrics and I picked them up during one of Joann's Holiday sales for super cheap.  I spent the next few weeks cutting what felt like a gazillion squares.  I sewed appliques on a few of the squares and created this rag quilt.

I found this fantastic throw pillow clearanced for $2 at Home Goods.  I couldn't have made it for less.

After removing the wallpaper here,  most of last week was spent taping,

 priming, and painting his room.

His room needed 2 coats of primer and 2 coats of paint to cover up the previous paint color change.  Okay, so you're thinking, "Wow!  That's really orange."  And it is.  But don't worry - it's just one wall.  The other walls were striped to tie the orange in.

I happened to find perfectly coordinated baskets clearanced at Lowe's and snagged them to corral his smaller things.  I also recovered his lampshade in a coordinating fabric scrap leftover from the quilt.

And on the orange wall, I applied a fabric skateboarder silhouette with some liquid starch.

The skateboard is some green felt cut from the felt that I used when I had covered an entire wall with it for Whirling Dervish when he was little.  The great thing about using starch to wallpaper your walls is that the fabric is completely reusable when you eventually pull it down and the wall is back to it's original condition with just a wipe of a sponge.

I placed his toy chest in the niche next to his closet and above it hung his changing table upside down as a shelving unit for his tv, dvd player, and stuffed animals.  He can stand on the sturdy toy chest to change out movies or retrieve an animal.

I still need to decide on whether I'll be sewing new valances, or maybe going with tan(from the bedding) drapes with maybe some orange ribbon trim, or maybe just leaving the windows bare with just the blinds for light control.  What do you think?

Thanks for popping in and checking out SB's room transformation.  I'm linking this makeover up to My Romantic Home's Show, Tell Friday and Frou Frou Decor's Fabulous Friday Finds and Between Naps on the Porch's Metamorphosis Monday.