How We Made Over The Kids Bedrooms

Today I’m introducing a guest post from Sally Morton, a very savvy mum who shows us how she made over her kids bedrooms on a budget, giving the kids a valuable lesson in the process!

My kids have been hinting that hey have outgrown their bedrooms for some time now, so I decided that maybe it was time for a makeover and an upgrade. And after I sat down with the kids to get an idea of what they were looking for in their new bedrooms, I pulled out my budget and started working out some numbers. I figured that it was going to take some serious cutting back and our holiday budget may suffer because of that, but thankfully I managed to find some pretty useful Discountrue coupons for Hotels.com  which allowed us to enjoy both he vacation and the makeover!
Soon I laid out the plan to my kids, they agreed to the deal and started planning what they wanted their personal spaces to look like.

Step One

First of all, if we knew there was something basic we were going to need to buy, such as paint ad sandpaper, we looked for special occasions. We also decided to go the DIY route so that we’d save even more. It was logical that the primary colour for the rooms should be something as plain and neutral as possible, because they cost the least. And then each of my kids added their own personal touch to make their rooms to their personal tastes.

The Walls

My son adores Batman, and I’m pretty sure he always will (I haven’t met a single boy who doesn’t think he is the coolest superhero ever) so he decided he was just going to have a more grown up version of that theme in his room. He painted one wall black (my poor heart!) and then painted a large stylised version of the Bat Signal in yellow. This cost us a little more than planned because our idea of projecting the mural onto the wall didn’t work with the particular image he chose. We ended up making the image half the  he originally wanted and creating a ‘blackout’ stencil then sort of winging it!

My daughter love the ocean and anything mystical like fairies, mermaids or unicorns. So to personalise her room she created a feature wall using a rich ocean blue and and fading into a bright sky blue.  To make the tow colours blend together better she first divided the two paint colours out in equal parts (we had coffee tins all over her room!) then roughly divided the wall into five sections from top to bottom. The very bottom of the wall got pure ocean blue , and the very top got pure sky blue, the middle section got an equal blend of the two, while the other two sections got a blend of three to one parts (more ocean at the bottom, more sky at the top) We than used a sponge to ‘smudge’ the dividing lines into each other. And finally she finished the wall with a large vinyl decal of a tribal style mermaid.

The Decor

We then headed for a various stores and browsed yard sales to find some old furniture and the other odds and ends (like lamps and picture frames) we needed to finish everything off. y son found two different black and yellow comforter sets online which he got at over 50% discount by combining coupons with a seasonal sale. My daughter searched forages and eventually found one comforter set and duvet set that perfectly matched the colours she’d chosen for her feature wall and suited her ocean theme, although her savings weren’t quite as dramatic as my sons!
For my son’s room we found an old steel 3/4 bed that he fell in love with so we decided to stick to that idea an found an old army chest to use for a side table come storage space, a steel and wood desk that we replaced the top of, and old metal office shelving that we had sandblasted to get rid of rust and old paint. Finally we painted everything in a gunmetal grey and bought clear plastic storage containers so that everything on the shelves can be arranged as neatly as possible (as neatly as any boy can manage!) WE finally covered a huge cork board in black felt, made a yellow frame from skirting he conned a neighbour into donating and mounted it on the wall.
The first thing we found for my daughters room was an old wooden L-shaped wiring desk with drawers. So we sanded it downs and painted it in a sort of silvery pearl white colour, then replaced all the wooden handles with silver ones. Her bed has drawers underneath it and she loves all the storage space it gives her, so instead of replacing it, we simply disguised the dark wood by jury rigging a white night frill/curtain to hide the drawers.Then we used an old duvet and layered scarves in different shades of blue over the headboard. We found a matching set of  battered wooden chairs which we refinished in the silvery pearl we already had, used on for the desk an and two as side tables while the  last found a home in my studio/office. Finally we copied the cork board form son’s room, although my daughter’s is covered in a satiny silver material.

Done!

And there you have it. All together the whole project still cost me a pretty penny,which is why I had to save up for three months beforehand. Now that may seem a little extreme but this is going to be the last major upgrade my kids get before they head off to college and their own lives so I decided to spoil them a little. Plus I really liked the fact that they both tried hard to stick within their assigned budgets and were careful to only choose items that they could see themselves still liking years from now! In fact within the first week of saving I already had both them coming to me with questions and ideas about what was possible withing their budgets! And that made me feel good because it meant all my hard work has paid off and i have saving savvy kids.

Thanks Sally, I’m looking for ideas for my son’s bedroom and I’m pretty sure he likes Batman too. My girls already have their room done and went for a purple flowery theme.

“JuJuHd” by Trollen67 – Own work. Licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0 via Wikimedia Commons.