All Around the World Boys’ Room

We’ve been working on decorating the room that Charlie and Jamie share for months now, and it’s finally done! I think it turned out so well! (I sort of want to just go stand in the doorway and enjoy it’s finished-ness.  Am I the only one who does that?)

My husband, Ray, has this ever-growing collection of vintage globes, and since we’ve run out of room for them elsewhere, we thought they’d make a great jumping-off point for the decor in our boys’ room. We added maps to the theme because there are some amazing kid-friendly ones, and what mom could resist making her child’s room as educational as it is fun? The boys love their new room, and I’m hoping that it can grow with them for a few years!Ray and I worked together on the wood-building in here. He did the majority of the construction work while I did the sanding, painting and staining, and we did the final installation together. Ray’s such a great sport when I start throwing ideas out at him or emailing him Pinterest links.The huge box in the corner between the two beds is just painted MDF. (I think it’s so funny that it’s enormous and takes up a ton of room, but the room is so much more wide open with this layout than it was before when we had the two beds side by side.) The giant letters are simple 1x3s, cut at Lowes, sanded and stained by me, then assembled with metal braces and hung with D-ring picture hangers. (I used a whole lot of D-ring picture hangers in this room!) The caricatures that we had done of the boys at our local education store last year make perfect wall art in this corner. (Except for the frames, they were free!)

Each of the boys got a wall-mounted book rack above the bed, plus hanging stuffed-animal storage. Those are just window-box wire baskets from Lowes. The book racks were made using a modified version of these plans from Ana White: Flat Wall Book Shelves. Ours are obviously a lot simpler, but they work well in this room. The maps mounted over each bed were a bigger project than I originally thought they would be, but so worth the extra work. Lesson learned: doing a bit of research before jumping into a project will save you lots of work and a few dollars later! On Charlie’s side of the room, we added a row of time zone clocks.Seven-year-old Jamie had this great idea for the clocks. Instead of putting the cities under the clocks, he asked if we could put framed pictures of our loved ones who live in those time zones under them. How cool is that? And, he’s seven! I went a tiny step further and printed the pictures on top of maps of their cities. (This might be my favorite thing in the whole room.)The clocks are simple $5 ones from Target. They’re perfect for little ones who are learning to tell time, though, because they have the numbers printed for the minutes, as well as the hours.

Back on Jamie’s side of the room, is our hanging feature. I like the added interest that you get by hanging something from the ceiling in a room, in kids’ rooms especially. When we were tossing around ideas, we considered disassembling some of the globes we have that are in poorer shape and constructing a mobile of sorts. In the end, though, since this room will be inhabited by little boys who just can’t resist the urge to bat around something hanging from the ceiling, we went with soft and safe inflatable globes instead.I was on the hunt for fabrics for this room for quite some time, so when I ran across the Detour fabric line by Bo Bunny for Riley Blake, I was thrilled! Isn’t it absolutely perfect for this room! Perfect! And, my sweet friends at Riley Blake Designs were so kind to send us enough for curtains, pillows and a great little framed bulletin board. I love how adding a few simple handmade items in coordinating fabrics pulls a room together. I knew if I was going to get this room done before my boys went away to college, I need to forego making the quilts myself, so I purchased the quilts from Overstock.com and threw in some accent pillows instead.On the opposite side of the room are the boys’ dressers. They’re simple, unfinished Tarva chests from IKEA that I may decide to stain or paint at some point, but for now natural works.The artwork over Charlie’s dresser is a set of framed printables from Willow Lane Prints.And, over Jamie’s dresser is the framed fabric bulletin board that I mentioned earlier. I’ll have a tutorial for it right here tomorrow! It’s a super quick and really simple project that adds a great little splash of fun to a room — a great practical way to feature a favorite fabric.Here’s one last peek at our Around the World Boys’ Room on the way out the door!What do you think? Have you decorated a child’s room with a specific theme? Our teenage son’s room is up next here, and he’s asked for us to use steam punk inspired decor!