Oliver’s Room Rearranged and Reorganized

When the toy organizer came to our house, she also made amazing yet simple recommendations for Oliver’s room (see his room before here). To start, she urged me to swap the dresser and the kitchen set to open up the room and make it feel less crowded. She said simply, “a room feels cramped and closed-in when furniture touches.” It makes so much sense! So we swapped the pieces around and I moved the mirror behind the door - the room does feel more spacious now.

The organizer also had some great recommendations to reorganize Oliver’s toys. Everything is more easily accessible and cleaning up is faster and easier. We condensed the books, made more room for toy baskets. Oliver’s collections brought together. Action figures together, little toys that aren’t baby safe together. Role playing toys together. In the cube shelf there’s now a cube for art supplies all together, games and puzzles together, little toys together. It’s hard to show well in pictures, but everything suddenly fits better, flows better. It’s easier to get things out to play, it’s easier to clean up. (Part of why we get so frustrated with the playroom is how much better the bedrooms now function!)

We added a much needed reading light to Oliver's nightstand - it's something we meant to do for a while but I wanted to find "the perfect" one. For now he has a small light that was in our basement until the right one comes along (and it's made such a difference for reading stories to him at bedtime! How did we ever live without one there?!).

Also adding the big mirror on top of the dresser (that used to be where the map decal is) helps to make the room feel larger and brighter. I leaned Oliver's little treasure shelf against it to keep all the tiny toys away from Matthew's eager hands.

Oliver is so tall now he doesn't need the step stool to get onto his bed, but we keep it in here so he can reach things on top of his dresser or on the bookshelves higher up. Matthew likes to use it to climb onto Oliver's bed too, so we keep it there. They spend a lot of time playing together in here.

Oliver's Room: An Illustrated Map

I finally found the perfect artwork for Oliver's big boy room - a illustrated map decal I found on Amazon. It's adorable, colorful, inexpensive and a great size. I love the illustrations! It's educational! It looks so cute on his wall!

Installation was easy overall and I was able to put it up by myself while the baby napped. Each piece peels off the wall easily and re-sticks well, so everything can be tweaked and repositioned until it looks right. If you order it off amazon, the key is like 1"x1" so you'll want to have a device handy where you can pull up the preview picture to see how it all goes together. The only tricky part is that the sticky side really sticks to itself (but it's totally removable from the wall), I found it tough to pull apart stuck together pieces. Eurasia was the hardest part because it's so large, it rolled and stuck to itself in several places and was a pain to get apart, so I would recommend a second person to help with that part. The decals are translucent, so this really only works on white or light walls. Also the clouds are white on white, so you really have to check the roll to make sure you pulled all the decals off before throwing it away.

Oliver loves it. He's also really into PBS Kid's Wild Kratts, so he's had a lot of fun seeing where different animals live on the map around the world. We compare the big flat map to the globe all the time for perspective too. It's fun and educational for the preschool set.

Before and After: Office to Big Boy Room

I love how Oliver's big boy room came out. It's not a dramatic change - same wall color, same carpet, similar layout, and a lot of the same furniture - but that's what I think I love most about it. I am so happy that we were able to transition this room from a sunny office to a cheerful bedroom for Oliver so smoothly.

I should have taken these photos with a wide-angle lens like these office photos for a better side by side comparison, but the lens was in my office boxes that still have to be organized. Next time.

My favorite part is the dark ceiling. I want all of our ceilings dark now. It makes such a difference in the room - the ceiling feels higher and the room feels more spacious.

I still think we'll make changes and improvements to the room over time, but I'm so happy with how it came out.

Oliver’s Big Boy Room

Oliver’s room isn’t totally finished, but the heavy lifting is over. Here’s what it currently looks like:

There are so many things I love about this space. I’m really happy about how it all came together, especially since we didn’t have to spend a lot to get it here - most of this room is done with things we already had in the house or were given to us. We’ve been in this house long enough now that we’ve been able to curate our furniture collection - almost everything is either dark wood or white, so no matter what room it’s in, it works.

The goal was to make the room feel happy, cozy and welcoming so that he would eventually sleep in here willingly. We moved over his books, his toys and some of his artwork. We added in some additional decorations that I had saved for him as well. This room gets great light so it’s bright and cheery all day long. I’m really into the dark ceiling (I want all our ceilings dark now!) and even the plastic stars are growing on me.

My office chalkboard and corkboard ended up staying at Oliver’s insistence. I had taken them down and he was upset and I realized there was no reason not to leave them up! I did move the mail file I used downstairs and pulled out a second corkboard down from the attic to fill it out (it’s all part of Pottery Barn’s daily system). Oliver loves sitting on his bed drawing pictures on the board. And I promised him we can cover the corkboard in any pictures he wants (which is Spiderman, Spiderman, Spiderman).

The kitchen being in here is a huge hit - he loves having it up here. He plays with it every morning when he wakes up, before he goes to bed, and a lot of times in between. The canvas boxes in the cube shelf hold a ton of toys and keep them out of sight. While the room isn’t large by modern standards, it’s HUGE for Oliver who is used to sleeping in an 11x7 space. He loves being able to spread out and play with his toys in here.

There are a few things that still need to be filled in. I don’t want to rush into it, just to be able to call this room “finished” instead of finding the right item (at the right price) for the space. Currently I’m on the lookout for:

• A little more artwork for the bare spots in the room
• A navy blue throw pillow for the bed
• A bedside lamp that Oliver will love that goes with the room
• A new nightlight that coordinates with the room (currently he’s using the one from the nursery)

Oliver’s Closet

In the nursery closet we have a small white dresser that has been priceless for storing out-of-season and next-size-up clothes. It’s easy to access so I can see what we’re working with for an upcoming season and has made my life SO MUCH EASIER with a growing kid. Staying organized is hard, but I have found that knowing what we have and being able to buy off-season clothing for next year has saved us a lot of money on clothes. Anything Oliver has grown out of (or will grow out of by next year if I’m switching out seasons) is put into a storage tub that’s also in the closet, and when that’s full the clothes go into a bigger bin destined for the attic.

I want to keep this system in place for baby boy #2 - using the same dresser for off-season and next-size- up clothes from Oliver’s attic tubs (I have some serious sorting and organizing ahead of me). Both boys will be born in the same season so sizing shouldn’t be much of an issue and I’ll just fill in here and there where I need to. I also want to keep this system in place for Oliver in his new room, which meant getting a second small dresser for his new closet.

It’s the RAST dresser from IKEA. Currently it’s unfinished but for now it’s still perfectly usable and since it lives in the closet, it doesn’t matter much. Someday I’ll want to finish it I’m sure. The tub on top of the dresser is for outgrown clothes. I don’t hang a lot of Oliver’s stuff - just his polos, jackets, sweatshirts and dress clothes. I want to add a hook or two for his Halloween costumes so he can wear them when he wants (though currently he can pull them down off the hanger pretty easily).

The cedar planks on the closet walls and paint-splattered wood flooring came with the house. We never carpeted any of the closets because it's much easier to keep wood floors clean.

We also put hooks up on the inside of the closet door, just like I did in the nursery. They are the perfect height to hang things like his school backpack and sweatshirts that aren’t dirty yet. This time I asked Oliver what animals he wanted and he insisted on an elephant, a frog and a zebra. I told him we only had room for 2 hooks but he explained that the zebra was supposed to be above the elephant and frog with no hook. Okay! The elephant is the closest my home printer could get to match a swatch of the navy ceiling paint and the green frog ties in the bedding. It's lighter in the photos than it is in real life. I really like how they came out!

Time for Bed...!

Once the crown molding was finished, we were finally ready to put together Oliver’s “big boy bed” which is a twin bed using my childhood bed frame from when I was his age. It’s dark wood so it blends well with the room. The bed also has a trundle that goes underneath it. Lovely friends of ours brought over a spare mattress from their guest room/office that they didn't need anymore, so we only had to order a trundle mattress, which was great. The trundle will be fun for sleepovers when he's a little older.

I think the bedding Oliver picked out looks good! The star sheets blend great with the ceiling color and I think the green works well with the palette. I think the bed could really use a navy blue throw pillow to bring it all together - it’s now on my list of things to find (preferably a pillow cover because we have enough pillows in our house).

Starry Night

When we painted Oliver’s ceiling, we kept comparing it to the night sky. This evolved into wouldn’t it be cool to do something with stars on the ceiling? Oliver of course LOVED the idea of stars (just like his sheets!). We just had to figure out the best way to do it. When I was in middle school I put up those cheesy plastic glow stars on my bedroom ceiling and they are still there glowing away, glued to the drywall. But those were out - too tacky right? I was hoping for something subtle that would only appear at night.

I researched different paints and stickers, different painting techniques. Unfortunately all of the paints I found were either white or the glow paint needed to be on white for it to glow. I found one brand of paint that might have worked on navy blue, but it was kind of expensive and I didn't know how well it would really work. The stickers and glow paint markers I found either had bad reviews or didn’t glow much. We thought about hanging LED twinkle lights but it wouldn’t look very nice during the day (and installing LED lights in the ceiling wasn’t an option since we boarded up our attic floor a couple years ago).

Then one evening Oliver was at his grandparents house and saw the old cheesy plastic 90’s stars on the ceiling of my childhood bedroom. He was totally floored, they were magical to him. I had to admit, I was really impressed at how brightly they glowed all these years later. And they didn’t look… terrible. Maybe I was being biased against them? Oliver loved them and his new big boy room was supposed to be all about him. Parents make concessions all the time? Happiness over good taste. After a quick search on amazon we had 200 stars coming our way for $7 - WAY less money than we would have ever spent on paint or fancy stickers.

And I have to admit, sticking those little stars up with a tiny dot of stickum that comes in the package is a lot easier than breaking our backs trying to paint a magical galaxy on the ceiling. Especially when Oliver loves the plastic stars so much. I’m a little bit worried about the fresh paint, but painting over the stickum dots in a few years would still be a lot less work than painting over painted stars. And right now they are fully moveable and removeable without any damage.

Mike got really into it and decided (since he was the one going up on the step ladder anyways) that we should do it right and put up constellations.  He did a really awesome job and it looks brilliant laying on Oliver’s bed. Very magical and fun. And those stars are BRIGHT- even an hour later they are still glowing (not as brightly but clearly visible). Unfortunately they don't photograph well in the dark, but you'll have to trust me that it's pretty great (even if they are cheesy plastic stars!).

Crown Molding

Mike put the crown molding up in Oliver’s new room and it looks amazing. It was just what the room needed. The crisp white line between the two colors really helps to make everything pop. Now I love the navy blue and yellow together more than ever - it’s just perfect for Oliver’s big boy room.

What is it about crown molding that makes a room feel so much more finished?

The crown molding was the final hurdle before we could finally start putting the room together - it was really exciting to have it finished - even Oliver loves it!

Big Boy Room Bedding

Figuring out bedding for Oliver’s room was tough. There are lots of adorable options out there but a lot of them are really expensive. With a new baby coming (double daycare!) we’re on a tight budget for this room. Plus little kids grow so fast and their tastes change so quickly - just because he loves space or dinosaurs now doesn’t mean he will love it in a year or two. Even if I went with something timeless, it’s hard to spend $300 on a quilt, even if it’s gorgeous, when little kids can make such messes on their beds. Ideally I wanted to pick something out that wouldn’t be the end of the world if it got ruined from all the gross things that happen with kids.

The bedding needed to be a lightweight quilt or coverlet, Oliver is a hot sleeper and he will roast under a duvet + duvet cover combo. We were looking for a solid, stripe or classic geometric pattern that wouldn’t go out of style (I didn’t really want plaid, chevron or dots). I was also hoping it would be soft and less than $50 for a twin. I scoured sales and my favorite stores, but I couldn’t find anything that fit the bill.

I was starting to get desperate… and then we were strolling through Target and walked by the kid’s bedding isle. They had some really cute sheet sets on display for a big bedding sale, and a friend of mine recently raved about how soft and lightweight they were (her kids are also hot sleepers). We were browsing and Oliver fell in love with a set white sheets that had navy blue stars that matched his dark blue ceiling. A ceiling he was very proud of since he helped paint it himself. And while we were looking at sheets I noticed they had a few quilts tucked away - I was immediately drawn to the solid green and solid navy blue ones. Timeless and classic colors, super soft, and the price was perfect at $27 for a twin on sale. I let Oliver pick between navy blue and green - he chose green, his current favorite color.

I think the leaf green will look great in the room - it coordinates well with the yellow and navy blue. Doing the bedding and ceiling navy blue probably would have been too much blue! To tie everything together I’d like to find a navy blue throw pillow that ties the ceiling color into the bed - I think that would be the right balance.

The Bedroom Ceiling Painted

The office/bedroom ceiling is painted! The navy blue looks as good in person as I hoped it would. Mike did a great job. He used a paint and primer in one (Benjamin Moore's Regal Select), so he was able to do the whole thing in only two coats without primer. The second coat was barely needed except in a few spots where we could see streaks in bright light.

It’s really dark, but this room gets a ton of light to make up for it. The ceiling also looks MUCH higher now too - I love it. It also makes the room feel a lot more masculine. I think it really needs the crown molding - not only because we did a loose line between the two (knowing we would do molding), but also to make everything pop.

Oliver also LOVES it. He wasn’t totally crazy about the color before we started (he wanted a “green and purple” ceiling), but now blue is his “favorite.” Mike let Oliver help paint, which made a huge difference in empowering him and embracing the change. He was so incredibly proud of himself and the ceiling, it really helped him take ownership of the room. Now he wants to show all his friends and move in right away.

The one downside?

Whoops. Oliver dropped the roller while helping in a spot where we didn't have a drop cloth. Mike spent an hour cleaning it, but navy blue paint on beige carpet is impossible. On the plus side it’s in the corner behind the door so most of it is easily hidden. Or we could attempt to cut this piece out (it’s the corner so it wouldn’t be hard) and replace it with a piece of spare carpet we have stored. Honestly it’s not a big deal and totally worth the sense of pride Oliver has for the ceiling. I'd rather he be excited about moving in than have a perfect carpet.

Ceiling Paint Color

We chose a dark navy blue for the ceiling of Oliver’s big boy room - Benjamin Moore's Van Duesing Blue. It’s a lovely dark navy with slightly green undertones and looks great with the Weston Flax Yellow in person. I’m so excited to put it up on the ceiling. We’re planning on painting and then putting up crisp white crown molding. Hopefully it will make the ceiling look higher and the room bigger (since dark recedes).

The yellow feels a lot brighter in real life than it does in the swatch, so in person the colors look really good together. The navy is really dark but this room gets a ton of light all day long. The colors look good together throughout the day in different lights. It's a big change but I think it will make the room feel a lot more fun and masculine.

My only concern is that once the ceiling is navy blue - will the white ceiling fan be too white against a navy blue backdrop? We can always replace the fan down the line or paint the fan blades a darker color (like gray?), though I think we need to see the final result before moving forward.

Emptying the Office

The first step to creating Oliver’s big boy room was to empty out the office. This actually took us weeks, it was a HUGE job - we stored so much stuff in here. We had to go through every shelf, every basket, every box and rolling cart and container. Everything was packed into boxes and tubs and even bags. Some designated for the attic, some designated for the basement or other spots.

The ugly truth: it looked like a disaster in here for a long time. It's actually organized chaos, but it felt as claustrophobic in real life as it does in the pictures.

It was extra crowded because it contained both packed up office stuff and a lot of stuff for Oliver's new room including his future dresser, nightstand, some toys and kitchen set. And then some random piles of stuff as well that landed in here from regular life. It was a lot of work to clear it out, but well worth it.

Since I'm not lifting a lot of heavy things these days, especially up and down the stairs. Mike was the superhero who got all the hard work done. Oliver was a great helper who helped move smaller stuff to the top of the stairs in the hall.

It's SO much better, but still crowded for redoing a room - all that's missing is the bed! It's not going to be easy to work this way, but for the first time we don't have the luxury of emptying a room to work on it. The basement is full of office stuff and we don't want to spread the chaos into other rooms of the house. Oliver is a sensitive kid and moving him to a new room will be hard enough, so we want to keep the rest of the house and his life as normal as possible. While Oliver does want to move to the bigger room (we gave him a choice) and he is excited about it, I know he's also anxious over such a big change so we want to make the transition as smooth as possible. Our goal is to keep him involved so that he feels empowered - helping with the work, making decisions (choosing from option tasteful option A and option B) and helping to make things for his new room.