By now, you probably know that I spent six days repainting my son’s room last week. Six days. You must think I’m a terrible, terrible painter for it to take me six days to repaint a bedroom. I would totally think that about me, too.
You have also probably figured out that I was here in my house alone for all that time. My husband took our son for a week up to his family’s lake cabin in Minnesota. I don’t do cabins, cold weather, or creatures, so I decided to stay behind and work on a huge surprise for Zack. I didn’t want to advertise it on the Internet, because, well, people are crazy and I didn’t need some freaky person trying to break in while I was painting, drinking wine, and listening to Top 40 radio.
When I was finished with the room (exactly one hour before I had to leave to go pick up my boys from the airport, I might add), I calculated the hours it took me to pull off this transformation. The answer? Forty-eight. It took me a total of 48 hours to repaint the room. And no, it wasn’t because of the wine.
Here is the before picture so you can see where I started.
It was because I have a bad habit of taking a simple task and turning it into an extreme.
I decided to do something more dramatic than simply painting his four walls a color different than our builder’s beige. He’s a fun and highly energetic three year old, and his room needed to match his personality. I took the concept from his bedding collection (which is the Hit the Road collection found at Target) and just ran with it.
Inspired by the lampshade in the collection, I transformed Zack’s room from builder’s brown to his very own town.
I probably spent about $150 total (well, and 48 hours of my life) on the transformation:
1. The paint is from Sherwin Williams (Resolute Blue, Gecko Green, and Storm Cloud) and went on the walls like a dream. I think I paid about $80 or so for paint (I bought the Duration line when it was on sale). It was my first time using Sherwin Williams paint, and I will definitely use it again.
2. I bought two LACK end tables ($7 each) from Ikea and turned them into a little table in the corner of his room.
3. The sunshine ceiling lamp ($20) replaced the builder’s mushroom light that was in his room; I cannot get over the terrific “rays” of light it casts on the ceiling. I just love it.
4. The flashing stoplight was about $18 at Walmart and is the perfect touch to complete his little town.
5. I was even able to find a spot for the two ugly $3 lamps I bought on clearance at Walmart a while back. I bought them for their shades, and I’m so glad to have found a place to put them. The green bases are an exact match to the green paint. I did have to buy two new shades ($4 each at Ikea) to replace the ones I “stole” from them originally!
There are still a few things I want to do in there — new window treatment, add a rug, and put knobs on his dresser and nightstand drawers — but I’m so pleased with the transformation! What do you think?
P.S. A huge THANK YOU goes out to my friend Kristi who kept me company this weekend and painted with me for a few hours. Kristi, as always, you rock! I appreciate you keeping me from carrying on the one-way conversations with my dogs. I was starting to get irritated with them for not talking back.
P.P.S. I’m also adding this to Kimba’s DIY Day Linky party over at A Soft Place to Land. This was a DIY challenge like none that I have ever experienced!
