I’ve been promising Knox (our 8 year old son) that I would redo his room for over a year now and have finally, finally finished it. He has been so patient! This room was previously painted a mint green with a mashup of furniture and an overflow of toys. So, we took the opportunity to do an all-out cleanup and make some bolder design choices that would take him from little boy room and still be appropriate for a teenager.
Knox loves Star Wars and science, as well as maps and travel, so I thought this constellation design I created for a Minted wall mural challenge would work really well for his room. Knowing that it was mostly black/dark, I painted the other 3 walls of his room white. I was really impressed with the quality of the new mid-century style bed we bought from Walmart. I love the upholstered headboard and the tapered legs.
LINKS:
RUG // NEON LETTERS // BEDDING // BED // CURTAINS // DESK (Similar, this one is vintage)
I’ve had a red mid-century desk for many years I couldn’t bear to part with, and it worked really well in this room. The wire Knoll Bertoia Chair was a $5 garage sale find (which is crazy- these retail for $832 new- no kidding!). Knox got the projector clock for Christmas. Above his desk are his life verse framed, a letterboard with a gold frame, and a map.
LINKS:
FLOOR LAMP (Similar, this one is vintage) // MAP // WIRE CHAIR // CLOCK // LETTERBOARD
A fun new edition is this pushpin map I got custom made from Paperrama. I thought it would be neat for Knox to get to pin the places he’s been in the world, and dream of where he’d like to go! This is a canvas print, but it has a hard backing that allows you to put in the pushpins. They were super quick about the customization and changed the colors to match his room, as well as added 1 Timothy 6:12: “Fight the good fight of the faith. Take hold of the eternal life to which you were called when you made your good confession in the presence of many witnesses.”
LINKS:
PUSHPIN MAP // PROJECTOR CLOCK
I like to keep an eclectic feel to our house and don’t like all the furniture to match, so I pulled in a wood side table with hairpin legs I already had and a wire Bertoia diamond chair (another crazy Craigslist find!).
LINKS:
WIRE DIAMOND CHAIR (similar, this one is vintage) // SIDE TABLE // GOLD LAMP (Similar)
Once we got the bed in place, I knew I still wanted to put some focal point above his bed. I found these “neon” letters on Amazon (link below) and Knox thought they were super cool. They are really LED lights and are lightweight so they are easily hung. They do have wires that extend from them for the battery or USB plugin, but I found a USB connector that allowed me to connect all 5 letters to a hub so we can plug them into an outlet and not use up a ton of batteries.
We chose the word BRAVE because this is Knox’s focus word. This post explains what a prayer word is and why it is so special to us and him!
LINKS:
NEON LETTERS // USB HUB (GET THIS if you are getting the neon letters!)
The ceiling fan was a much-needed and simple update, and I still think I might take the whole thing down at some point and paint it all black, but it was nice to get rid of the frilly lamp cages, and replace them with these industrial ones I found. A quick $20 fix!
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Knox’s old bed had storage in the bottom, so I knew when we got rid of it, we would need another storage solution. My mom (who is a pro estate-saler) found this mid-century dresser for him quite a while ago, and so I dreamed up some shelving to go around it. Thankfully, Shawn was up for the job!
It was a fairly easy D.I.Y.- we followed the outline of this tutorial. I did have to search all over town to find bracketing that was already painted black, and I’m so glad I did! After checking Lowes and Home Depot, it was True Value that had it. It was 1/2 the price of the white and grey versions I had seen AND I didn’t have to spray paint it. We bought the wood at Lowe’s and stained it, and then just put it together. I think the whole shelf project was around $200.
Another big project was getting all of Knox’s toys organized and contained into the storage boxes you see on the shelves. I basically sat everything out on his bed and said, “everything needs to fit in these 4 boxes, and if it doesn’t, it’s being donated”- which actually worked! We did use an old cube bookshelf you can see on the floor next to the dresser for some stuffed animals/robots, but everything else is contained on the shelving!
LINKS:
BLACK BRACKETS // BLACK SHELF TRACK // GREY STORAGE BOXES- LARGE // CUBE BOOKSHELF // DRESSER (Similar, this one is vintage) // BLACK AND WHITE GLOBE // INDUSTRIAL FAN (Similar, this one is vintage)
One solution I was particularly proud of was the use of these magazine files for softcover books. Since the books couldn’t stand up on their own, and I didn’t want to stack them on top of each other, this was a great solution. I found these cute gold ones and thought they were perfect!
LINKS:
GOLD MAGAZINE FILES // POTTED FAUX PLANTER (I found this one at HomeGoods)
LINKS:
AGATE BOOKENDS // DIFFUSER // GLOBE (Similar, this one is vintage) // DARTH VADER HELMET // STORAGE BOXES
I love the way his room looks as it gets darker outside. The letters glow and the constellations seem to as well. I typically like light-and-bright but this dark-ish room makes me just as happy, and I really feel like Knox will be able to use this room for many years.
Let’s talk about the wall mural!
I created the wall mural using engineering prints, which you can get at local print shops like FedEx Office, Staples or Office Depot. This is the 3rd or 4th time I have used this technique, and so I decided to film the process and make it a Skillshare class! So, if you have a Skillshare account, you can go watch and learn- or use this link to get 2 months for free- which is more than enough time to watch the whole class.
You can easily check out all of the products I’ve linked here:
