Decorating The Boys' Bedroom

The boys' bedroom has been red, white & blue for some time now. We agreed it would be better to pick a colour scheme & stick to it, and to choose something that is going to suit all three without being too babyish for J or too grown up for H, but that will also be right for L. So, red, white & blue was the way to go.

Initially it was just painted in two shades of blue and a red, with white curtain poles, red curtains and a few R/W/B accessories. As time wore on it desperately needed freshening up, it had flaked (been picked...) in a couple of places, it just looked a bit dingy. So the Mister took the opportunity to get it decorated last weekend when all three of the boys were away. L & H had gone off to watch Walking with Dinosaurs with the Mister's brother & his wife in London and J was staying at a friend's so it was the ideal time to get in and get it done.

Luckily the paint that we used before was still fit to use so we didn't have to spend out to buy more, and we found some bargain R/W/B wallpaper for only £7 a roll. We bought three rolls and had one left over, but more on that later...

The Mister wallpapered one wall as a 'feature' (I like my feature walls as you may have noticed from my previous posts when we decorated our room and the girls room) and repainted the ceiling (white) and the walls (two shades of blue, no red this time) and repainted the wood work with gloss. We moved J's bed to the far corner, shifted the shelves into their toy cupboard & have moved the chests of drawers to the wall where J's bed was.

On the wall above the drawers are three shelves (one for each of the boys for their favourite books & little knick knacks) and eventually we will replace their TV for a wall mounted one to go just under the shelves, because frankly the one they have now is ancient & we need have it off the drawers & out of the way.

We've replaced one set of drawers with two smaller IKEA RAST unfinished pine chests, and will be doing the same with the other two ASAP, so their drawers are a little higgledy piggledy at the moment (which I haaaaate) but eventually they will be swapped. The other chests have just had it and desperately need replacing but the ones we picked up are only £20 each so it won't cost the Earth, they're very sturdy & well made considering the low price, I really do love IKEA for that sort of thing!

We'll also be adding a LAIVA desk & ALRIK chair to the room, primarily for J as a space to sit and do his homework. Above his bed we're adding a lamp so he can read if he fancies it, and a small shelf next to his bed for his alarm clock & such like. Next to L & H's bunk bed we're going to put up their framed certificates and favourite pictures (like the one of them with Steve Backshall). They also have a six hanger wall hook for their dressing gowns etc which is decorated in a R/W/B 'mod' style and two canvas prints that I found in the sale a while ago. Their bedding sets are also all in various R/W/B designs.

With the leftover roll of wallpaper, we were going to just take it back to the shop but in the end decided to use it to cover some little storage boxes for their toys. They've got one for H's Deadly 60 collectibles, one for Moshi Monsters and one for Hex Bugs at the moment. I'm also thinking of covering a canvas with it to hang on one of the painted walls to tie the room all together. Simple but effective, and a handy way to use up leftover wallpaper if you have some spare that you don't want to just throw out or have sitting in the cupboard under the stairs!

I would also really love to have their names in wooden letters somewhere in the room too, not sure where yet but I think that it would look really nice (I want to do the same in the girls bedroom) so I will be having a scout for some nice plain wooden letters to paint/decorate. So there you have it, our recent decorating adventure. It's not quite finished yet but as good as and we are pleased with it, and the boys love it which is what is important.

UPDATED 04.03.2013

The bedroom is complete now with the exception of their new TV but that can wait. We've replaced their bedding with these fantastic bargain sets from Dunelm Mill - Union Jack for J, cars for H and robots for L.

Their chests of drawers have now all been replaced, and their desk with lamp is now in situ for them to have somewhere for their homework. We have given them the master bedroom as the three of them share so it makes sense for them to have the most space. The Mister has done an amazing job and I am so happy with it, the perfect "boy cave" (their words...) for my young men.

For a comprehensive list of items from the room please check out my Pinterest board : http://pinterest.com/jooleroo/my-home-the-boys-bedroom/

What sort of themes/colour schemes do you have for your kids bedrooms? Will you be doing some decorating to freshen things up for the new year?