Big Boy Room Transformation Reveal

Well, today is the day! I finally get to share the fruits of my labor with you. Today, I am revealing the “Big Boy Room” transformation. Just to recap: This room was a baby room for our youngest son, and our oldest son was sleeping in a toddler bed in the guest bedroom. That arrangement simply didn’t function well for us anymore, so it was time to transition them to a shared “big boy room,” and that’s just what we’ve done. Not only did I make over the room, but I did it under serious time constraints (2 weeks!) while being filmed for a series of short segments on HLN. Update: You can check out the HLN TV segments here. To read all about that experience, check out Day 1 and Day 2 of filming. Warning: This post contains a zillion photos.

To refresh your memory, here is the room “Before.”

And here it is After.

Here’s a rundown of everything I did in this room:

Painted and glazed the dresser and night stand, both found on Craigslist. (Sidenote: I have to give a ginormous shout-out and thank you to Sarah Macklem of The Yellow Cape Cod for inspiring the paint treatment on the furniture in this room. I knew I wanted to go with a navy/lime color scheme, and when I saw the lime green dresser on her blog I knew it would be perfect for this room. I also used her tutorial to assist with making the curtains. I knew I wanted to add “no-sew” stripes but wasn’t sure what to do about the raw edge. Her technique worked out perfectly. Thanks Sarah!)
Added stripes to the curtain panels
Designed and made headboards (Tutorial here.)
Built toddler bed (Tutorial here.)
Made pillows
Spray painted lamps and added ribbon trim to shades
Re-covered a thrift store chair
Spray painted a magazine holder to use for books
Added a new navy border to this Quatrefoil Photo Art that used to hang in our office.
Spray painted thrift store frames and mounted these cardboard letters inside them on the wall.
Designed a printable featuring a Marc Brown quote and framed it for the wall.

Tutorials for some of these projects will be coming soon!

The boys even made their own artwork for the room.

Jake loves playing in here so much, I couldn’t even finish taking photos before he made himself right at home.

Here are a few more shots (sans kiddo):

The boys seem to really love their new room, so my hard work paid off. I stepped out of my comfort zone big time with this room makeover, but luckily it worked out. Looking back, it was pretty crazy to attempt building, using power tools, etc., basically for the first time, all while a camera crew looked on. I built a bed – from scratch! And designed and built headboards for both beds. They’re not flawless, but I’m glad I pushed myself to go above and beyond with this project. The smiles on the boys’ faces when they saw their room for the first time made it all worth it.

I didn’t have plans to build a bed, or even to make two headboards. I had originally planned to make a headboard for Aiden’s twin bed, but to use Aiden’s old toddler bed for Jake. A few days before filming the reveal, I decided I’d really love to have a mini-version of the headboard for Jake’s little toddler bed. Unfortunately the toddler bed we own already has a headboard attached that can’t be removed, so the day before the reveal, I randomly whipped together a new toddler bed from scratch and attached the new headboard to it. No big deal. Ok yes it is a big deal, for me anyway. I’ve never done anything like that before! But now I know that I can.

I’d like to thank John (the producer) and Dave (the camera man) from HLN for being so wonderful to work with and for being so great with my kiddos. They made us all feel so comfortable and at ease, and they were just such nice guys. I will actually miss having them around! But I won’t miss working my tail off every day.

As for the HLN series, my segments will be shown during Evening Express at 5pm on Fridays starting March 15. (If that changes, I’ll let you know.) They are super short – like, 2 minutes long. So if you blink you’ll miss it, but it will run in a 3 part series over a 3 week period and will repeat over the weekends.

And here is a side by side Before & After, for comparison:

Although throwing a deadline into the mix certainly added some pressure, it was actually a good thing to have that type of motivation. Otherwise, who knows if this room would’ve ever gotten finished! I’m not a professional designer or carpenter (obviously), but I feel like we are all capable of more than we think we are. If I can do this, then so can you. Trust me. I walked away from this project kind of thinking, “Wow, I didn’t even know I had it in me to throw something like this together.” But it’s always a good feeling to set a goal and accomplish it. The fact that the boys love their room as much as I do is just the icing on the cake. (Of course that was the ultimate goal anyway!)

So now for the big question: Would YOU put yourself out there and try new things and face new challenges (on purpose) all while a camera crew documented it? Or am I the only crazy one? Do tell.

If you like this room makeover, I’d love it if you would Pin it or share it!

Update: You can check out the boys’ bedroom at our NEW house here.

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