J and M + j + s: Big boy room

We put the finishing touches on Josh's big boy room last week. I bought a miror for above his dresser which still needs to go up, and sent his quilt to be finished. But I wanted to share some pictures of his room.

We didn't want to repaint our guest room in part because I painted it when we moved in and it seemed like a waste to repaint it so soon. We know that Josh is soon entering a "color on the wall" phase, so it seemed even more stupid to repaint before that. We also hope that eventually both boys will share the room upstairs, so we don't know how long this will even be Josh's room.

But that left us with a lavender room for a toddler boy. The internet did not provide any suggestions or ideas for turning a purple room into a room for a boy, so I had to get creative. I decided that lime green, grey and white would go well with the wall color and "boy" it up a bit.

We got lucky and got a good deal on a white dresser and it really brightens up the small room. We got the rest of the furniture from Ikea in white and light wood color. Ikea happens to use lime green as an accent color in many it's, so it was easy to stick with the theme. We got a darker grey carpet cut to fit for his room that will hopefully cover any stains. I also decided on a few craft projects to tie the room all together. I made Josh a poster with his name, and used an Internet hack of painting IKEA spice racks to use as little bookshelves with the same color paint. The biggest project I took on was making a quilt for the room.

Making a twin size quilt was a much bigger task than I realize. It took me over a month to find and pick out fabric that I wanted, and then another few weeks to put the quilt together. I couldn't find much fabric that I liked in stores, so I ended up ordering it online. I wanted to bring together the purple, green, grey and white in the quilt with some patterns and fun prints of animals and things Josh likes. I ended up adding lots of other bold colors (blue, teal, orange and red) in the prints. I was worried about this not matching well, but I love how it came out. I made the top of the quilt, the bottom of the quilt and prepared the binding for the outside. I just sent it off to have it machine quilted, because I don't have the time, skill or proper sewing machine to do it myself. I can't wait to see how it turns out :-)

We needed a lot of help from family and friends to convert this room from a guest room to Josh's room and really appreciate everyone who helped out. From moving furniture out, to putting up shelves and lighting we couldn't have done it without everyone. I also really appreciate all the crafting and sewing advice from near and far.

A friend recommended getting Josh excited about his new room by picking things out for it and that was great advice. We couldn't always take him shopping with us, but we showed him each item as we got it and let him "help" get the room together. He LOVES his new room and loves talking about the things he did to get it ready :)

Here are some pictures of the room. I'm really happy with how it all turned out. Take that Pinterest and the Internet, you can make a purple room for a toddler boy!