When my now 8-year old son was just two, he had one giant obsession: cars.  That kid woke up talking about cars, went to sleep talking about cars, and he spent every moment in between either playing with cars or talking about how he wanted to play with cars.  He was a fun little man, and Lightening McQueen was his hero.  And if we are being totally honest, Lightening McQueen was my hero, too, because he helped get me through some rough moments as a first time mother.

So, I did what any crazy, DIY loving mom would do and painted a car mural on every wall of his room.  The cars were cartoon styled to match his (then popular) bedding from Target.  The delight on his face when he saw the room for the first time is one of those moments that, as a mother, I will never forget.

In the past few years, Zack’s obsessions have changed. Although he does still like to play cars with his 3-year old sister and has never turned down a chance to watch his buddy McQueen, Zack’s primary obsessions are now Lego, Minecraft, and sharks.  When I brought up the thought that we needed to redecorate his room since he had outgrown the toddler car theme, I was met with a lot of resistance.  Zack is a very sentimental kid (a trait that he doesn’t get from me), so the thought of his car room going away brought out the tears.

I gave him about six months to get used to the idea.  One day, he came to me and said, “I’d like to have a shark room.”  He wants to be a marine biologist – which is funny to me, because that’s what I entered college to be but I had never shared that with him. “Yep, we can do that!” I replied. “But, with a little mid century modern twist.”

“Huh?” he said.

Using Photoshop Elements, I put together a mood board using my ideas for his room.  Since he outgrew his car room so quickly, I don’t want to go down the themed room route again (I should have listened to my friend Melissa back then).  I want to make it “feel” sharky while having very few actual sharks in the room.  Zack loves the above image, so I think we are headed in the right direction.  This is really the first time I’ve ever done a mood board for one of my rooms, but I’m already thrilled that I put it together.

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