Jaxon’s big boy bedroom – room reveal!

I love a good room reveal. And what’s more fun than doing up a kid’s bedroom?

Last time I showed you Jaxon’s room, it looked like this:

So inspiring, right? (Bleh.)

This bedroom was actually used as guest quarters for some time after we moved in, while Jaxon shared another room with his little brother. They were used to sharing a room at our old house, and we thought it would make the transition easier if we kept them together for a little while. Then we ended up with a long-term houseguest who stayed for several months, so we didn’t have a chance to do anything with this room for some time.

Once our houseguest left, we moved Jaxon in here, and he was pretty excited to finally have a room of his own. A room with a BIG bed! But it was still in its original state – we’d done nothing when we moved into the house except plonk the furniture down and make up the bed. Every time I walked in there, I felt like sticking my tongue out at the white walls, white bedcover, and grey carpet. The room was bland, sterile, and boring, with not a hint of the lively little boy who lived there.

It needed some personality, fast.

The quickest and cheapest way to inject a bit of life into a lifeless room? Paint, of course. 

I am totally in love with the classic navy, red and white colour scheme for a little boy’s room, so I started by painting some bold navy stripes behind the bed to create a focal point and set the tone of the room. Instant transformation!

Decorating is so much easier when you have a cohesive theme in mind right from the get-go. Even though I wasn’t able to get started on this room as quickly as I would’ve liked, I always knew how I wanted it to look, so I was able to start collecting décor items long before my paintbrush ever hit the wall. I went for navy and red pieces in classic stripes, with a couple of star motif accents. That made it easy to pull together the whole room pretty quickly once the painting was done.

Here’s where we ended up!

Let’s take a closer look.

This red and white rug from Target was an absolute steal, reduced from over $100 down to $39. Say WHAAAA? I also bought a black and white stripe rug for our bedroom on the same sale. Too good to pass up! Decent sized rugs are usually super expensive, and these are a really generous size.

You may remember that a while back, I shared how I made this distressed wooden star-motif wall art. (You can find the tutorial here!)

Well, I always intended this piece for Jaxon’s bedroom, so with the wall painted at last, it was time to finally hang that sucker. I enlisted help – it was heavy, and I was terrified of doing it wrong and having it fall on my son and kill him in his sleep. I didn’t even want to watch how it was done. I know plastic hollow-wall anchors were involved. Those things scare the bejeebers out of me. See, me, I like to go for overkill and use 90kg weight-bearing hooks with cast-iron reinforcement – three sets. The kindly picture-hanging genius who assisted me assures me that such measures are truly unnecessary in this scenario, and also that death by wall art is, in this case, highly unlikely. I trust him. Myself, not so much.

Speaking of which, can I just take a moment to express what a wonderful invention is Facebook? Facebook, you waste a third of our lives with pointless status updates and mindless scrolling, and yet still we are addicted and cannot live without you. There’s nothing like procrastinating for weeks about hanging a 500kg artwork due to basic un-handiness and mortal fears for your son’s life, then panicking at 11.30pm the night before a whole-house photo shoot and putting out a lame plea for help on social media. And having someone actually show up first thing the next morning, drill in hand. 

Bless you, my kind-hearted genius picture-hanging friend.

Facebook, we salute you.

The metal cut-out drum stool at the foot of the bed was another steal – this time from the Reject Shop. For a shop that carries so much cheap junk, how is it that I now own no less than four stools from there?! Because they’re great stools, that’s why. There’s nothing more satisfying than knowing exactly what you’re after but balking at the prices, and then stumbling across the perfect knock-off that’s really really cheap. Nothing wrong with cheap, people. As long as you can tell the difference between cheap and tacky vs. cheap and awesome.

This one falls into the awesome category. It’s a sturdy metal stool that brings a fun pop of red to the room. The kids love making kamikaze leaps from it, and alternate this with knocking it over on its side and pretending it’s a super-short tunnel. (See, cheap is good.)

Speaking of the star motif, I bought my star cushion cover online from Light in the Box, a U.S. store that ships worldwide. The red and white striped cushions behind that were from Target. Teddy bear from Country Road (inherited pre-loved from a friend.)

To play on the nautical feel of the navy and white stripes, I added a framed poster from Target.

We replaced our too-neutral, too grown-up white-and-grey doona cover with an Ikea find in a subtle denim-blue pinstripe reminiscent of ticking, and added a solid navy throw, also from Ikea. I love how the stripes are also picked up in the Roman blinds, purchased from Masters.

It was a thrill to see the room come together just as I’d imagined it. In the spirit of a good room reveal, let’s take one last moment to appreciate just how far we’ve come.

BEFORE:

AFTER:

BEFORE:

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