Wednesday, December 15, 2010

Middle Child Syndrome

Sadly, I have to say that I have fallen short as a mom, my middle child, Fisher, was the very last person to get his room done. Not at all because I love him any less or I forgot about him, simply because I got really tired. After painting all of the other rooms in the house and not having a clear vision of what I wanted, it kept getting put off. However the end result has to be my favorite bedroom in the house... I really love it!

Before was a large mish-mosh of random things, including his sisters flower sheets from a previous room. Luckily I have a really manly husband and Fisher was not harmed by the adorable girl sheets... I knew that I wanted the pottery barn dinosaur sheets because they had a great color pattern and were not cheesy. I found it was really hard to find boy sheets that were not super childish or super dorky. This was my starting point. Here are the befores...



I, in my "all or nothing", mentality decided that I was going to attempt a chevron stripe on one of his walls. If you are not a math person, DON'T TRY THIS AT HOM!! Actually it was not that bad but getting the first stripe up there was the hardest. I used a meter stick and a pencil and a piece of cardstock that was cut at the angle I wanted each stripe. To make it easier I made each stripe the length of the meter stick and decided that I wanted the white strip 5" and the brown stripe 7". After I got the first one done I just measured down 5 or 7 inches depending on what color I was doing. Then comes the fun part...TAPE, TAPE, and more TAPE. This actually took the longest, and honestly I had a blister on my hand from rubbing the edges so hard so the colors would not bleed...



Once you tape, your are ready to paint the first color, be sure and lightly with pencil write what color stripe is what, it will definitely help you not paint the wrong color...



Once everything had dried I had my cute little helper help me get ALL of the tape off...

This is the first color, after you have completed this step go ahead and start taping again for the second color. Right about now you will ask yourself, "Self, why in the world did you start this crazy project, because you still have to paint the rest of the room too?" I can't answer that...

Here are the two colors half way done, and of course I ran out of tape so I had to wait to finish...

But after you are done, it really does look amazing. Here are the afters... and Fisher I love you so much!




I got the artwork idea from Potterybarn, of course, but for like 179 bucks...not worth it. So, I made my own version for 3 bucks! It is just 3 fence posts from Home Deopt, and then I painted my own version of a dinosaur. Much better on my budget... And the bed was from a antique store for like 40 bucks, it was black but I got out my spray paint and painted it this very pretty blue.

I got the bookshelf also at an antique store for 20 bucks, it's made out of reclaimed wood and fit perfectly with the artwork. I love the room so much, and now I am trying to figure out how to teach Fisher to keep his room clean. Boys...

15 comments:

Kara said...

You're so crafty and talented!!! I d k where you find the time or energy! I sah with my 20mon old and 7mon old..I have all these ideas but no energy lol!!! Ohhh and I soooo want Fisher's bed for myself in a bigger size :-)

Hyphen Interiors said...

This looks SOOOO great!! I have thought about such things, but the amount of taping intimidates me. ;) I need to redo a 20 ft wall in my laundry room (nothing on the wall - it's opposite cabinets and just a bench and art is there now)... Maybe I'll do stripes or chevron. Thanks for the great post!!

Hyphen Interiors said...

This looks SOOOO great!! I have thought about such things, but the amount of taping intimidates me. ;) I need to redo a 20 ft wall in my laundry room (nothing on the wall - it's opposite cabinets and just a bench and art is there now)... Maybe I'll do stripes or chevron. Thanks for the great post!!

Hyphen Interiors said...

This looks SOOOO great!! I have thought about such things, but the amount of taping intimidates me. ;) I need to redo a 20 ft wall in my laundry room (nothing on the wall - it's opposite cabinets and just a bench and art is there now)... Maybe I'll do stripes or chevron. Thanks for the great post!!

Hyphen Interiors said...

This looks SOOOO great!! I have thought about such things, but the amount of taping intimidates me. ;) I need to redo a 20 ft wall in my laundry room (nothing on the wall - it's opposite cabinets and just a bench and art is there now)... Maybe I'll do stripes or chevron. Thanks for the great post!!

Hyphen Interiors said...

This looks SOOOO great!! I have thought about such things, but the amount of taping intimidates me. ;) I need to redo a 20 ft wall in my laundry room (nothing on the wall - it's opposite cabinets and just a bench and art is there now)... Maybe I'll do stripes or chevron. Thanks for the great post!!

Hyphen Interiors said...

Sorry... I pressed publish too many times. Please delete some of these. :)

Rachelle said...

Looks fantastic! I loaaathed the chevron when it first became the thing to do and then one day.. I started thinking about it.. and thought a little more, then became a little obsessed. Now I love it. :)

xo

Anonymous said...

I absolutely love it!! The stripes & the DIY dinosaur art work. You've totally inspired me!
Crystal @ the weekendhomemaker.com

Unknown said...

I love the wall! It's great!

Janis@HomeStyle said...

Great job, it looks wonderful. Love the dino art....think I may have to try my hand at that one.

Simply Fit Mama said...

I love this room it's looks amazing. Love the artwork, so smart!

Laura said...

I love the stripes!! Couldn't you have painted the whole room the lighter color and then do your taping based on the sizes for the darker color? I'm thinkingnthat might have worked but I could be missing something. Anyways, it looks awesome, I would love to do that sometime.

Jen V. said...

That looks freakin' awesome!!! I just recently did stripes, too: http://jenspire.blogspot.com/2011/02/from-childish-and-chaotic-to.html But, chevron stripes...never woulda thunk it!!!!

Kate said...

That looks awesome!