An Updated Bedroom for a Big Kid
When we first moved in, the room was a flex guest/sewing/lounge room, painted all white with mostly soft neutrals to embrace all the bright sunlight this room gets. Then it was painted and decorated colorfully to welcome our impending baby boy or girl into the nursery. When he turned 3, we switched out his crib for a twin bed that I built. I used his old crib sheets and other materials we already had in the house to create an upholstered headboard and I built colorful shelving for books. See here for the bed and headboard DIY and here for the bookshelf DIY.
Now that he’s turning 5, I wanted to tone down the room a little bit but still keep it fun and happy for a kid.
Here’s what changed:
- I repainted the room white. Truthfully, we’d like to sell this house and move into something bigger in the next few years so any bigger changes we make to this house will be to help us function better in it without having to redo it for resale.
- I switched out the pendant light to something any age person could like in the room and bought this flush mount with a matte black plume feature and opal light from Bellacor.
- I removed all the old upholstered headboard materials and bought this Veronique Twin Performance Velvet Headboard in navy from Bed Bath & Beyond. The bright dark blue lends a pop of color without overwhelming the room.
- Here’s where a mistake happened. I was planning on keeping the twin bed I built for him but needed to cut it down a few inches on all four sides since I accidentally built it a little too long and wide two years ago. Even though I measured several times, I accidentally cut it down too short, so I ended up having to buy this solid wood platform twin bed on the spot. And I do mean on the spot. I bought this bed while sitting on his bedroom floor wondering what went wrong with my measurements. This platform bed is natural wood, so it brings less color to the room than the blue bed he had before but it’s a platform bed so it’s nearly hidden anyway.
- When August found out we were painting his room white, he said it would look boring and he wanted color so he asked for a rainbow. I found a large rainbow decal on Etsy that now adds color to the wall above his bed.
- The previous bookshelves spelled out August – so there were six shelves. When the room was empty and after it had been painted white, I loved how open and calm it felt. To keep that feeling going even after everything was brought back in, I reduced the number of shelves so they spell Gus and added one extra, so now there are only four shelves and they are all low enough so they don’t really block the view of the window when you first walk into the room. Bonus from their new height is that August can now reach all of his books.
August’s new big kid bedroom still features plenty of color, but in a calmer and more mature way.
