The Boys' Room Reno Revealed

It's birthday week around these parts, with Frac's 13th birthday this past Saturday and Jumby's birthday this Thursday. This means one thing. Room renovation time. And birthday cake. Which I suppose is two things but whatever.

Since I busted my arse last month to redo Frac's sister's room for her 14th birthday, my son had the expectation that I'd do the same thing for him and his little brother. Something about impartial parenting and equal love distribution. I don't know, I'll admit I sort of tuned him out after he prattled on. It's not like I'm up for any parenting of the year awards here, people.

However, a promise is a promise and I promised. Or so my kid reminded me every darn day since his sister's birthday. Apparently he was just as sick of his bedroom as I was.

The army green just wasn't working for me. The room was dark and dingy and it drove me nuts to go in there. Of course, that may have had something to do with only having one 40 watt lightbulb in the ceiling. It's only been five years and it never occurred to me to check out the bulbs in the ceiling light. I don't even want to think about what that says about my intelligence level.

I don't have any pictures of the boys room with all their crap in the room, mostly because I tended to avoid their room like the plague. Between Frac's dirty clothes strewn everywhere, Jumby's medical equipment and memories of Bug haunting me, I will be honest and tell you the boys room was my least favourite space in our home.

That's all changed with some new paint, a bit of sweat and a boat load of tears.

And for the record, trying to decide on how to decorate for a teenaged boy and a severely disabled soon to be seven year old boy was no small feat. There isn't a lot of common ground between the two kids.

I went with an aviation theme for the boys. My brother flies gas fueled hobby planes and Frac loves them. The boy's bed has been a life saver for my back because it's just tall enough that I don't have to bend to put Jumby into his bed and the bottom bed slides away out of sight, which helps save space. Frac pulls the bed out at night and calls it his man cave.

Since no child climbs the steps up to the bed, I've used them as shelves. The paper mache airplane was Frac's birthday gift, hand crafted by his older sister. The flash drowned out the picture above the bed, but it's a lovely drawing I bought on Etsy.

Apparently one is able to wire ceiling lamps in with out turning the breaker off. Or so I discovered. My husband is still mystified how I didn't manage to electrocute myself when I put it up. I figure I must have horse shoes shoved up my arse. The spinner and propeller on the wall was donated to the boys by Uncle Stretch, my big brother and my handy dandy husband managed to hang it on the wall so that the boys can actually spin it.

Of course, I tried to get a picture of it in motion to show y'all how it spins but I forgot to slow the shutter speed down. Or speed it up. Or whatever. I'm not a photographer. Can you tell? (Don't answer that.)

This is a terrible shot, but when I took the pictures I had my flash on and it washed out the true colour of the walls and made them seem much more aqua bluish than they really are. In real life the walls are a smoke blue with lighter blue accents. It's not nearly as Blue's Clue's as it appears in some of these photos. I went with orange accents because that is Frac's favourite colour and since Jumby is blind, Frac gets to choose.

Since Frac can't manage to put his clothes away in a dresser without ripping the drawers to pieces, I thought I'd try something different. The Ikea shelves and bins actually hold more clothes than the dresser drawers do and I don't really care if he stuffs the clothes in the bins unfolded or not, as long as they are off the floor.

I'm not holding my breath though.

All the teddy bears above belonged to Bug and nobody was ready to let those go just yet, so they stay.

Frac wanted a desk. Apparently he wanted it so that he could drape his dirty clothes over it as I discovered this morning when I went into the room to take these pictures. I'm not bitter or anything. I just love assembling Ikea furniture so that my kid can use it as a laundry hamper.

Argh.

My favourite part of the room has to be the giant aluminum airplane I found in the city and the two amazing prints I bought off of Etsy. It wasn't until I found these pictures that I was sold on the airplane theme.

My Etsy addiction looms large.

Of course, no kid room redecoration would be complete without the heart painted by the door.

I tell them I paint a heart for them so they know I will always love them, always.

But really, I hope they see it as a reminder that I'm always lurking.

Maybe it will help them keep their rooms clean.

Probably not though.

Dammit.