I love my boys, but I hate their room.

I mean, really, really, really hate their room. I tried painting the walls before, but the room is so small and there is not one, but two, boys living in there!! It felt so tight and cramped, that it just seems like white is the way to go. I could choose something really light, I guess, but light colors don't exactly say "boy" to me. So, white just seems like the obvious choice. That means, however, the walls need some life! Fortunately one is covered almost completely by the bunk bed. Unfortunately, the only place the bed makes sense is in front of the room's only window. So that looks totally stupid, but there is really nothing to be done about it, save losing lots of drawer space, and that CAN NOT happen. They need it ALL!!!

So those are a lot of obstacles to overcome, but I can honestly say I don't HATE their room anymore. And to make matters more awesome, they keep it pretty clean now. It took some major rearranging, and, of course also involved a playroom remake. So here are some befores, afters, and tricks I used to make the playroom and my boy's room places I don't absolutely abhor, and instead places that are nice, inviting, and will hopefully make someone else desperately want to buy my house down the road :)

I decided their closet, which was such a mess of shoes they rarely wear, needed a makeover too. I needed a place to store football stuff too, since they are playing year round now, we always have equipment, plus they need access to compression tops, shorts, tshirt, jerseys, and pads so I'm not having to locate them 5 minutes before it's time to leave. So I emptied the bookshelf and stuck it in there. Now all the shoes they rarely wear are in there, along with a shelf per boy for football stuff. Then the shoes they wear often have a place in the front, but it is only one pair per boy.



Shelves I made for under $30, my fav being the top shelf with their football pics and trophies. Thanks to friends who caught these awesome photos last season. And a third wall with more football awards and pics. My mom bought them those football player collages. I love them since filling them with cute pics from last season....that, again, I got from friends.









And the bed covering the window. I still don't love that situation, but it's what I have to work with, so....yeah.



The walls still need some work, so if you cute stuff you want to get rid of, message me, I'll send you my address. :)

BACKSPLASH!

It definitely deserves a shout out! So very much work. I thought this would be a 3 or 4 day project. Bawahaha! More like a 3 WEEK project. It drove me absolutely crazy being unfinished, so some days I promised myself I would NOT paint all day. Most of those days I followed through on my no painting for today promise. Other times, I failed to, didn't work out or pay any more attention to the kids than they absolutely demanded. So it totally become a family commitment even though I was the only one doing the actual painting. I thought I'd never finish, but it's done and I'm happy with the way most of it looks. Now I just need to decorate above the cabinets. That means I have to spend some time on Pinterest getting great ideas to copy. Here are the before and after photos.