Blogging about life in Minnesota, raising our six kids with Down syndrome while battling Breast Cancer.

Be the kind of woman that when your feet hit the floor in the morning the devil says, "Oh shit! She's up!"

Thursday, October 11, 2012

Boyz Room

When Asher first came home, we made a spur of the moment decision to put the boys together in one room. I had purchased matching twin sleigh beds the day before I left the US to get Asher. In the three weeks I was gone Dean and my son Tyler were supposed to be cleaning out the spare bedroom and setting up the beds for the boys.

Yeah, that didn't happen. They set up the beds, but all the..umm...crap that was in the room just got pushed to the side, not cleared out! So the night that we arrived home, here was I, exhausted, jet lagged and just a little bit irritable, PURGING that bedroom of everything in it, moving a dresser, etc. It wasn't very pleasant experience for anyone who witnessed the event, I'm sure.

And that was it. I never did any decorating in there, just left it as it was. There was very little room for the boys to play in there and I never felt satisfied with it because it was just thrown together.




About a month ago I decided I wanted bunk beds in their room. Never mind that Axel is petrified of heights. Never mind that I loved their sleigh beds. I just wanted to give them more space.

So what do you put in a room with a 8 year old and a tween 12 year old? Well, hows about some Rock-n-roll???? I found the bedding first, and did the room around that.

First, I found this bunk bed from IKEA. It's the Kura reversible bed, which can be used three different ways. What I liked most is when you flip the bed over to use as a bunk or loft bed, the top is only chest-high for me. Not too high for Axel and not a pain in the neck to straightened the bedding on the top bunk! When you buy it for $200 at IKEA, it looks like this:
It's ok looking. The blue makes it a little too "little boyish" for my taste, but when I googled the bed I found a lot of people who had done all kinds of things to them, which got my wheels turning! Dean and I transformed the beds. I love how the chrome paint turned out when I textured it. 


So, here's the rest of the room....

The walls went from yellow to light gray. (they look a little greenish in these pictures! LOL)





It still looks a little plain to me. I'm thinking of taking down some of the decals and doing a cityscape or something, and getting black shelves for Asher's toys.





Axel's favorite part is the new bedding. He LOVES guitars!


They really love their new space!

9 comments:

Milena said...

That bunk bed is great for kids - although their former beds were very nice too they really seem to have been to big for the room.And you painted the bed so nicely! The room looks much nicer now!

Do you think a photo wallpaper might do the trick to make you more satisfied with the room? Or some bigger pictures/posters on the wall with Asher's name on it? The decals are nice, but kind of small given that the wall is so big. It does look a bit empty. But I guess the most important is that the boys like it - and sometimes, especially with childrens' rooms it's better to leave it a bit empty to start with since things seem to *ahem* acumulate....(at least here..)

Leah Spring said...

Yes, when ordered these decals they seemed bigger to me. (not sure why. When I went back to look at the site again I could see their size better.) I'd like to put this one upright on the wall Asher is standing next to.
http://www.dezignwithaz.com/rock-guitar-removable-wall-decals-p-698.html

Unknown said...

You could go to www.posters.com and look for rock-n-roll or music posters that you could frame (relatively cheaply with the do-it-yourself frames from Michael's, Target, or IKEA). I LOVE the last picture of the boys looking at a book together--so sweet!

Amanda said...

You did great! That is so so cute!

Hope Anne said...

Love that last photo . . . it's sooo sweet . . .

Sher said...

Love how it turned out. You can always paint the shelves he has black. Great job. I bet the boys love it.

Devon said...

Ahhh... now I know what I can do with the bed when they get older! Looks great! It has been a great bed for us... still in perfect condition after 4 years with 3 boys! I bet they were so excited!

Ali Rae said...

Looks like you'll just have to adopt two more kiddos so those sleigh beds get used! :)

Leah Spring said...

Ha! Nope that won't be happening. 1) I sold the beds and 2) we're only able to adopt one more child.