William Morris Thursday - my boy's room

While reading through my blogroll this morning, I noticed Jules did a post on cleaning out her bottom freezer drawer. That's interesting, I thought. She usually saves that kind of stuff for Thursday. And then it hit me that today is Thursday. Whoops. Totally forgot about my William Morris project post and I actually have something to share.

For weeks I've been telling my 13 year old son that I'd repaint his bedroom. I painted it an army green to go with all of his military stuff when we built the house 7 years ago. Since then, my boy has really given the room a work out. There were scuff marks, nail holes and lots of places where the paint has peeled off from all the rough playing he's done in there. ;) Since he's moved out of the rough playing phase of his life (sniff, sniff) he's wanted a more mature color palette and clean lines to match his neat freak personality. It's taken every ounce of self control for him to not just grab a brush and some paint and take care of the problem for himself. So, with a four day Easter weekend to take advantage of, I finally stepped up and did what I promised. 

My pictures this week leave a lot to be desired, but you'll get the gist.

The comforter set I got him has a red, black and gray design on it. I took his pillow sham to Lowe's and bought two different shades of gray and a quart of red that matched his bedding. I don't have any full shots of the room because his window doesn't have any blinds on it so they're always blown out.

When I asked my son what color he wanted his room to be, he requested red. I told him red was out of the question, but suggested painting the lower portion dark gray and the upper portion light gray with a red stripe around the middle. He shrugged his shoulders which, I think, means 'whatever' in teen speak.

I borrowed my friends laser level to paint a wide red stripe around the room and then I used it to tape over the red stripe. Then all I had to do was paint the bottom part up to the tape and paint the upper part down to the tape. When I removed the tape, I had a red stripe around the room!

He likes it and is in the process of reorganizing the whole thing. I still have to paint his dresser and nightstand and find a cool table for his tv and game system. He also requested a couch and coffee table so he can relax and a mini fridge, washer and dryer for his closet. I told him it was his bedroom, not a bachelor pad.

On an emotional note, I will admit that I started crying no less than 3 times while doing this project at the thought of my little boy growing up. So if someone who has an older than 13 year old boy will go ahead and tell me that it gets easier, I'd appreciate it. So far, he's turned down our offers of large amounts of cash money to stop growing. Can't say we didn't try.

My next project will be to paint the girls room. I've started by removing a full trash bag full of trash and 2 trash bags full of stuff out of there and moving their dresser onto the porch to paint this weekend. I did find time to redo the bulletin board I got for their room. It was a freebie in the last hour of the last day of a garage sale I went to. I painted the edge a color that matches their room and adhered a vintage sheet to the surface with spray mount. No pictures of that process. I'm getting a little tired of tutorials. My own, that is.

That's it. I'm finding that since starting this project with all the other folks participating, I always have a project in the works. The only thing keeping me from doing more is the time constraint. I'm sure when summer starts, I'll be able to step it up.

I'm linking up to Jules' William Morris project.