My goal before having the baby was to move our first kiddo out of the baby room and into his own big boy bedroom. He loves anything and everything with wheels and an engine. I'm not a big fan of really juvenile looking rooms for kids, but still wanted him to feel like he had "kid" things in his room without it feeling too stuffy and grown up. I decided to go with a "trains, planes and automobiles" theme. I feel like the compromise worked out well.
Although I did "splurge" more than normal on his bedding (as in- I actually bought something already made) I did the majority of his bedroom on a very tight budget by creating most of it out of already owned or scrap items.
I hung up a cute coat/backpack rack that I made out of a vintage shudder on the wall when you first walk into his room. I found this cute metal wheel on clearance at Hobby Lobbs to go above it.
The focal point when you walk into the room is definitely the gallery wall above his bed. I spent a long time looking for inexpensive frames that were still bulky enough to make a statement. No such luck. Lucky for me, I have a hubby who is willing to put up with my crazy ideas and he made me these frames out of free wooden pallets. Honestly all we did was glue the corners together (after he cut out the pieces with a miter saw), then I hit them with a few coats of spray paint and added picture hangers on the back of each one. I found some cute prints of vintage cars and helicopters to go in the frames.
The "headboard" was made from a $10 footboard I picked up brand new from the DI. A local furniture store donated several mismatched items to the DI, so I decided to use this lone bed piece in my favor. (I did look online for the other components of the bed, and the headboard alone would have cost me over $150). We chopped off the feet of the footboard, added some hangers to the back of the piece, and mounted it to the wall. Heaboard magic. :)
For the bedding, I purchased a Pottery Barn Kids duvet cover on clearance at Downeast Home, found the down comforter, and white quilt set on clearance at the o.co store. The navy blue sheets are from walmart, the green and twine pillow from Home Goods, and I made the red and white ikat polka dot bedskirt and accent pillow from a fabric that I found HERE.
I used an old IKEA nightstand we had lying around, and an old IKEA lamp/lampshade that I revamped a bit. I wrapped the lamp base in twine, and used some of the leftover fabric from my curtains to recover a plan lampshade. I also added twine to the shade. The darling red truck is also from Hobby Lobbs (purchased on clearance).
I refinished this fabulous antique dresser a little while back, and although I wasn't planning on it going in his bedroom it just seemed to work perfectly in there.
He loves his metal motorcycle and train, also purchased on clearance from Hobby Lobbs.
I made faux curtains out of table cloth I found at Home goods, cut in half and stitched the edges.
We hung this cute little yellow plane from Hobby Lobbs from the ceiling with twine. He tells me every night that his airplane will "shoot all the bad guys" that come in. Glad he thinks it's there to protect him. :)
Alas, my very favorite wall in the room... our "THINK" wall. I knew that I wanted a wall of bookshelves and pinned a bunch of different DIY options but wasn't in love with any of them. The stars aligned when I thought of using a pallet, searched on pinterest and lo and behold there were a few out there. We made several of them, and rather than trying to make them all uniform and perfect, I decided to highlight and embrace the blemishes and imperfections. That made them so perfect in the end.
We decided to go up almost all the way to the ceiling intentionally so that Trav could only reach the bottom rows, and so we could keep the "special" or more fragile books up high where only Mom and Dad can reach. He likes to bring his piggy stool in occasionally to reach the books on the middle shelf.
I fell in love with the word "think" in a kid's bedroom as soon as I saw this picture on pinterest. Once again, on my budget I decided to make it myself... can you guess what I used? Yep, leftover wood from the pallet. Again, imperfections and different colors embraced.
And there you have it! I love how welcoming his room is now, and the fact that he loves to be in there. I feel pretty good about how frugal and resourceful we were. Once again, your home can be beautiful on a tight budget.
If you have particular questions about how things were made/done, please email me. With the new babe in our lives, I don't have time right now to write detailed tutorials. Thanks for understanding!
XOXO
Tired but happy Penny Wenny
