About 5 years ago, I was hugely pregnant with my little blessing, sweet Cole. I was so excited to decorate his room with all of the care that I put into Grant’s room in our old house in Newberg (where we lived before moving to Dallas). And, since Grant came 4 weeks early, I thought it would be a good idea to start sooner rather than later. I distinctly remember standing on one of our barstools with a paintbrush in my hand, reaching as high as possible to paint the corners of his ceiling light blue, while feeling him kick the wall that I was leaning against for balance. It kinda freaked Mitch out, so he took over. We painted the upper part of the walls and the ceiling light blue with a 5 inch wide stripe of dark blue under that. The rest of the walls are the same color as the rest of the house (Desert Fawn - a light tan). You can’t see ANY mistakes in the paint job. It is truly remarkable! All credit goes to Mitch, of course!

The paint job is really the only thing we ever really finished in his room. The rest was sort of pieced together and not really very cozy or exciting. I got tired and lazy. The whole nesting thing never really kicked in, so I left it as it was. When he transitioned to a big bed, we brought in the twin sized trundle bed set that my grandparents gave us (the trundle part was taken to another room when family visited last month, so it is not pictured).

This is obviously the BEFORE:

• The curtain is a twin sized sheet that I pinned to a navy tab-topped curtain (which is too short, but you can’t tell). We have 10 ft. ceilings, and the tops of the windows are 96″ off the ground, so twin sheets work great as window coverings.
• There is a desk in the corner that I purchased for $3 at a garage sale. I decided to take it out of the room because it is one of those lift-top school desks that isn’t very practical for us. Plus, it has an unfortunate word lightly scratched in the surface that I didn’t notice when I bought it. Oops!
• The chair is also a garage sale purchase for $1.00! The quilt on the chair was made just for Cole by the ladies at our church. It is one of my favorite things in this room.
• The quilt on the bed was made by my Grandma just for Cole, and it the THE piece that pulls everything together. LOVE it!

• The headboard was another garage sale find for $8, and it was originally chartreuse, but I painted it red.

• The dresser, which I LOVE, was actually part of the master bedroom set, however it doesn’t fit into our bedroom, so Cole gets it. When he was a baby, we screwed a changing table pad onto the top (tabs that attach to the back). It has been perfect in his room. The drawers on the right hold his clothes, and the drawers on the left hold books and puzzles.
• What you see there was the extent of the wall decor. The 3 plaques are A-dorable, but Cole is no longer a “baby aviator”, so I’ll be selling those on ebay when I get around to it. The clock has had dead batteries for years. The dinosaur needs to find a new home at our son’s elementary school library. I popped the balloons. I’m mean like that. (And, he’s had them for a couple of months!)

This is our AFTER:

This makes me giddy!!

• We moved Grant’s old twin bed (no trundle) down from the upstairs play room. We’re giving up sleepover spots, but at least the mattress is nicer and we won’t stub our toes on the old metal frame.
• Mitch hung the painted C that we purchased at TJ Maxx a long time ago for $4. It was brick red, so I painted it black.
• The semi truck under the window was purchased years ago on ebay for $4, but I never did anything with it. Cole likes it!
• The lamp was a garage sale find for $2. It was a weird copper color, but I spray painted it with hammered black (or something like that). The lamp shade was stolen from our family room, so I had to purchase a new lamp shade for the family room lamp for $15 (purchase #1).
• Mitch rigged the headboard to raise it up about 7 inches, and he added some rubber feet to the back since we can’t attach it to the bed frame. This will prevent it from smacking against the wall when Cole jumps on the bed. OR, at least it won’t be so loud.

It’s rudimentary, but I think it is genius, and it works!

• The chair was just pushed against the wall on the other side of the bed, and we draped the church quilt over the back. Cole is using it for book and puppy storage. We might paint the chair red at some point, but I think it looks great as it is, so it is low on the priority list.
• The nightstand used to be MY nightstand (from the same bedroom set). I bought myself a new one this week with a Christmas gift card (wheee!), so now Cole has a matched set.
• I painted the frame (which we already had) with the same can of spray paint that we used on the headboard.

On the opposite wall is our BIG project: a “new” memo board.

It started out as this $3 picture that I purchased at a garage sale last summer. When I bought it, the lady selling it said, “Oh, that is such a pretty picture. I just hate to part with it.” Um. Okay. I just smiled.

I was excited about the substantial frame, and my original idea was to paint the frame and flip the picture over and paint chalkboard paint on the back of it like I did with my other large garage sale picture. Then, I realized that we are dealing with a 4-year-old, and there would be a big, dusty mess on the dresser if I did that. I decided that a memo board was a better option.

However, I didn’t want to run out to buy fabric, so I wandered around the house looking for old sheets or something to cover it with. I remembered my stash of burlap that the boys bought me for Christmas 2009 (wahoo!), and the piece of fabric that I had purchased back before Cole was born to be used on his window (but then I got lazy and used the navy tab-top). I wandered around the house thinking, “I’m just sure I have some batting around here someplace.” Then, ah-HA!! No joke. I had a bag of batting.

I painted the frame with the same glossy red $1 Walmart spray paint that I used on the bed. I wrapped the picture in 2 layers of batting, stapling it to the back. Then, I wrapped it with one layer of the blue fabric, and then one layer of burlap. I purchased 2 spools of ribbon ($2 each) and a new pack of staples for my staple gun to finish the project ($4).

The paint job isn’t perfect, but it looks nice. The ribbon isn’t perfect, but I like it. I “tufted” it with staples from my staple gun, which I might one day cover with red buttons, but for now, I’m good with it! And, Cole thinks it’s cool.

Once again, a round-up of the before and after:

Not bad for a weekend, huh? I’m so inspired to work on other rooms in the house now!! Perhaps my own room is next!

Did you do any home improvement projects this weekend?

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