Since Master C was born he’s had our tiny box room as his bedroom. Whilst it was plenty big enough for his cot-bed, a chest of drawers and a chair to sit and give him his milk and stories in, it certainly wasn’t big enough for him to play in it properly. Now that he’s nearly two he’s at that age where he wants to play with his toys more and to have some space to himself. He got into a bit of a habit of just charging into his sister’s room and playing in there instead which was starting to cause a few issues between the two of them. Mr C and I therefore decided that it was time for us to finally give up the double bedroom that we’ve been using as a study and dumping ground for the last two years and instead hand it over to Master C.
There’s been a huge amount of work to get it ready though. The room wasn’t carpeted and hadn’t been decorated in the five years that we’ve owned the house. Mr C has worked like a trooper over the summer to get all that done. All the walls, ceiling and woodwork (and boy is there a lot of woodwork thanks to a built in desk area and alcove wardrobe) have been painted. He took up the old laminate floor (which we gave away on our local Freegle group) and also repaired a few bits of skirting board before we ordered a new carpet.
In terms of furniture we didn’t need to buy much at all. His cot-bed has moved with him from his old room and we shuffled round a few chairs in the house so this Ikea one is now there for story and milk time.
Next to it is this gorgeous little chair that originally belonged to DorkySon. Master C absolutely loves sitting in this chair and reading books, or drinking his milk (which he’s only just started to do on his own). If it’s milk or pre-bed story time though he insists that I sit in the chair next to him. Incredibly cute.
When it comes to clothes storage we were planning on finding him a new set of drawers that he could open more easily himself, but already in the room was this gorgeous chest which Mr C and I bought second hand when we first set up home together. When we had our loft conversion built two years ago we unfortunately couldn’t get them upstairs so they remained in our study. The plan was to move them to the bottom of the garden to my sewing cabin, but we have a slight problem in that it seems we can’t get them downstairs now either! The way the new stairs were put in for the loft means that the head height is reduced from what it was and they just won’t go round the corner at all. It looks like we might have to sell them with the house one day. They don’t exactly fit in with his room, but there’s not much else we can do about it!
The bookcase was an old one that Mr C’s father gave us. A boring looking dark wood office style one that I then attacked with some paint to upcycle it into something suitable for Master C. The main body is now red and the shelves are alternate blue and white. Much more in keeping with a little boy’s room
We managed to find these cute dinosaur curtains in our local Dunelm and I love the dino print on them so much that I also picked up a set of three dino pictures (which we still need to actually hang up!) and a storage box too which we use for his Duplo.
On the wall above his cot-bed is one of Master C’s favourite things – his train wall sticker. Every since Mr C put it on the wall he woken each morning and shouted the word “train” and pointed at it as soon as we come into his room. Even throughout the day he’ll point it out regularly to everyone with accompanying shouts of “choo-choo!”
I’ve not really been one to go in for wall stickers before, but when asked if I’d like to review this one for mywallstickers I jumped at the chance as I knew it was something that Master C would love. Mr C found it relatively easy to put up, with good instructions. He said that it was a bit tricky at first to work out what you were doing, but once you had it sussed it was easy and the instructions made sense. The backing paper on both sides added to the confusion, so do read the instruction carefully and slowly. It looks very professional on the wall, no air bubbles at all and has certainly livened that wall no end. There appears to be a small bit of clipping to the cattle pusher at the front of the train, but I’m not sure if that’s part of the design or not.
We’re really pleased with the way the whole room has come together and Master C seems to love it. He plays in there loads now and doesn’t charge into his sister’s room nearly so much. Everyone comments on how nice the room is too.
It just leaves us with the next DIY job – turning the box room (Master C’s old room) into a study big enough for two of us. Trying to plan this one is turning out to be quite tricky.
Disclaimer: We were sent the train wall sticker to review. Everything else seen was bought ourselves.
Boo Roo and Tigger Too says
Tigger is still in the nursery that we decorated for Roo 8 years ago, it’s not exactly great for an almost 4 year old. I’m loving some of your design tips and will hopefully incorporate them in his room (when we finally get round to doing it.