this isn’t really late breaking news, but its taken me aaaages to get around to posting about the changes i made to my son’s room. its no secret that’s for sure! if you’ve seen my apartment therapy home tour shots you’ll be familiar with all of this already, but oh sweet lordy do i love talking about makeovers! can we get a before…?

nothing intrinsically wrong with that ‘before’ pic. it was a very nice calm and minimal babies room. i went with an aqua, lime, and orange palette largely inspired by the rug you see. the changing table was the same that i was changed on when i was a baby, and it was made by my great grandfather during the depression (from orange crates). don’t worry the cabinet has been moved into another room where it will take on its seventh life as a guitar bench. and there’s the wee little guy, back in the day, i think that was taken when he was one year old. and what about the ‘after’ shot…?

TA-DA! there is a sideboard where the cot was! and a bed where the change table was! and a bunch of different stuff! working from left to right we have: ikea storage ‘bins’ holding toys and supplies (painted in nippon paints ‘bamboo’ color), a second hand sideboard scored from my friend’s shop (the top was pretty rough so it got a lick of paint ‘satsuma’ by nippon paint, to be precise), the print on the wall above the sideboard is by shinzi katoh, and the smaller print on the wall is ‘gama go’s critter boat’ by tim biskup.

the bed was actually the first thing i bought. i found it in a thrift store and thought it was such a sweet, perfect ‘first bed’. from that point i put the room together really gradually. i had a folder on my desktop and a photoshop file that i used as a digital mood board. i took photos of what we already had (the prints, the clock, the chair) and then worked out a palette and ‘theme’ (i was inspired by the yellowing colorful illustrations in vintage kid’s encyclopedias) and then added the other furniture as i discovered it. i would search very generally on etsy and ebay for extras using very general terms that fit my theme, eg “vintage woodland” and if i found something intriguing i’d drag the pictures into my mood board to see if they worked. it was just trial and error and patience. but i enjoy putting rooms together so much, and this was such a special project. i adored my bedrooms, growing up, and i wanted this extra special first ‘big kid’ room to be as fun and cute as it was functional. storage was an extra special consideration seeing as previously all the toys had lived in our lounge room!

here’s a view of the million dollar rug! its not really that valuable, i bought it from urban outfitters and it arrived a very different color to the one online so i spent about its equal value just getting it to be the color i wanted! ugh.

so after i worked out i was going for a vintage woodland, nature, kinda theme i could. not. believe it when i found this sheet on etsy! its a smokey the bear single sheet, in great condition, that i’ve turned into a duvet cover. its got that lovely soft vintage sheet feeling, but i sewed it to a new plain white sheet to give it some extra thickness . i still can’t believe my luck! my son loves pointing out the animals on the sheet and reading all the fire safety messages. the cushions are ‘orla kiely for target’ napkins set i picked up on ebay.

here is one of my woodland patchwork prints in its natural habitat! now you know what informed my choice of colors for that print… its all about me, baby! also pictured is a leaf print by ubiki, from etsy.

the sideboard was a real score. my friend was closing down her shop to set off on a world adventure, and so i kindly offered to relieve her of her shop counter, and here it is! a freshly painted top, and a new lease on life. it now holds lots of boxes of smaller toys and games in its shelves, and some smaller clothing items in its drawers.

some woodland-ish trinkets my son corralled into his room. funny how little people take ownership of certain things. he’s just claimed my whisk as his own recently!

the bedtime story chair has a very new and lovely cushion on it from arthur’s circus! the chair and the bed frame are both painted in nippon paint’s ‘wainscot’ color. its a nice, very 70s brown. the chair was one of my grandma’s kitchen chairs, so its really cool it gets such an important role in this room.

can you believe i found some squirrel bookends at my local housewares/gifty shop.. these babies are keeping us safe from a total book-alanche. we have an avid story-listener on our hands!

and finally, on the wall at the foot of the bed, by the doorway, we have a little cluster of art wall goodness. the dreamy lab partners prints (and the matte stephens’ bear monster) frame the ‘moon in my room’ light. father christmas brought my son the moon last december and so every night we check out what phase the moon is in, and adjust the light accordingly. it makes a really pretty nightlight and educational tool.

as i mentioned, a lot of the things we already had around the house, and the other furniture brought in is half ikea, half second hand so i’m quite happy with the thriftiness vs practicalness balance.

so there we have it! from nursery to nearly four years old! my son loves his room and even after a couple of months of it being all set up he’s still thrilled to have a room of his own, with character and interest, and that’s the big triumph for me.

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