It didn’t take us long after Landon was born to realize sharing a room with Lucy just wouldn’t be an option. They were too close in age, and she was not ready to be flexible with someone else in her space. So over Chuck’s spring break, we took on the biggest home improvement project ever and set it up so they could have separate spaces. I shared his adventure room here.
Adding baby #3 to the mix, thankfully, doesn’t feel like as much of a logistical challenge. In fact, setting up Landon’s room to be a shared room felt nearly effortless. Like there’s supposed to be two little boys in there. And that is a wonderful feeling.
We didn’t have a budget for this room. Unless “try not to spend anything” is a budget. All told we spent $28. $12 for shelves and brackets at IKEA, $15 for the book sling supplies, and $1 for the green bookcase at a rummage sale.
The room has a green, brown, and grey colored theme. It is separated into a big guy and little guy space with a table in the middle for building, creating, stacking, and general little boy mischief. We bought the shelves and brackets at IKEA last time we were visiting my family. We spray painted the brackets a grey to mute them a bit and make the maps I mod podged on the bottom of the shelves stand out more. I love how the shelves turned out. I didn’t put any maps on the top of the shelves since they’re high enough up that you can’t really see them. I cut out 5×7 pieces from the maps and folded them to make the airplane pennant and the other planes are held to the wall by that magic blue tape.
The book sling was inspired by this tutorial and some friends who have already made them. Things got a little hairy when Chuck went to hang it because there was no way to get the brackets on studs and centered under the shelves. The solution was to go for the studs [because it’s a little boys’ room…] and I sewed the sling to try to hide the fact that there’s 6.5 inches of dowel on one side and 9 on the other. I think it worked out. That fabric is actually the last I have from the single panel I used to make my kitchen curtains. It’s from the Threshold line at Target and I am a big, big fan.
I picked up that green bookcase at the end of the bed at a rummage sale this summer. I had planned on using it the way it was intended [three cubes stacked high] but had some kind of stroke of luck to realize it was super solid and could be put on it’s side. That way nobody’s pulling a super heavy bookshelf on top of themselves [Do other people worry about that or do I just have super strength monkeys?]. I didn’t even repaint the shelf. It just sort of was magically a color that totally worked in the room. Crazy.
Over the toddler bed we kept the dino art we had and made it into a grouping. There used to be a desk on that wall and when we put the bed there it was weird that the art wasn’t centered over the bed. To make the map I just used some mod podge to seal it over some foam core. Not something I would recommend. The foam core seemed to shrink a little when everything was dry so the edges don’t like to stay close to the wall. I used some picture hanging wire to hang the plane over the front of the map so in the summer when the ceiling fan is running it bounces up and down. The little clipboard was something we’d bought at Dollar Tree a while back. We picked the ivy leaf from our front yard and I sealed it with mod podge [yeah, I use a lot of mod podge]. When it was dry I let it hang out in a thick book [Harry Potter 7, if you were wondering] until I remembered it a few weeks later.
This little guy has actually stayed the same. I’m not sure how it will work for the folded clothes of two boys but I’m going to go the “not something to worry about right now” route with that one.
The closet got a nice overhaul to try to make it more organized for two boys. It’s nice because it extends beyond where you can see for a foot or so. I love the idea of having shelves or furniture in the room.
Here’s the little guy side. The side of the crib has an organizer full of our musical instruments. I made the crib skirt to keep all of our trucks and cars hidden. The leaf art was from Michael’s when we were setting up Landon’s room. I took a canvas the kids had used a few times and spraypainted it green. I wrapped it in twine and then printed the scripture from Joshua 1:9 on the manilla paper [I just cut it down to the size of printer paper and sent it through]. I love how it turned out and the verse has some special meaning to Chuck so I love that it’s hanging up over the heads of his boys.
Speaking of that awesome husband of mine, he’s also responsible for this amazing table. The top was wood we had leftover from the bench we built into the kitchen and the “legs” are actually wood and steel frames he rescued from a dumpster. We already had the stain so this project cost us $0. I put rubber shelf liner on the bottoms of the frames so they wouldn’t scratch the floor if someone happened to move the table. I love the window over the table. I think it might be my favorite view. Especially right now with every color of fall adorning the leaves of our great, big gumball tree. That Lego Duplo storage fire truck was a steal at a thrift store for $8! And it was filled with Duplo blocks! I know! They play with those every day so we keep them handy.
Thanks for letting me share the boys’ room! It’s honestly one of my favorite rooms in the house and you’ll catch up hanging out in there most afternoons. And maybe one day I’ll stop smiling when I say “boys'”… but come on, how great are brothers!?
hey, beth baker! 