My Creative Blog:
bedroom

November marked 2 years in our"new" house. I can't believe it's already been two years, and at the same time, it feels like we've always lived here! Before we moved in, I quickly painted each of the kids' rooms in a solid color and did very minimal decorating. Last year, I did Callen's room with the fun Pallet Wall, but he's the only one that has a"cool room" as my kids say. Kira was next on the list for a room makeover and thankfully, it's already gotten the"cool room" stamp of approval from my kids!

This room makeover was part of one of my projects for P&G. It was my first video for those readers, so sorry about the introductions, but this video does give you a great little room tour! (Excuse the creepy freeze frame… why does Youtube do that?)

Here's a still shot before and after

Pretty Big Difference isn't it? I can't wait to share all the fun projects and DIY details with you- I'll be featuring one project each day this week, but for now, here's ton of pictures!

I grabbed this adorable little hooter at Target.
The mirror was something we DIYed about 8 years ago, yup, we DIYed before DIYing was cool!

Little Book Nook!

Spray paint and round bulbs make all the difference!
All the color details coming later this week.

And this is the other side of the room! Helloooo… huge whiteboard wall!
As you heard in the intro video, KJ had a tendency to write all over the walls. We now have a dedicated place for that!
Wednesday you'll get all the product info and tutorial for this.

A little DIY took this dresser from boring to custom-ish!

For P&G I can't have any pictures showing, so I left Kira a little note in this cute frame instead.

Creative coloring storage!

Masterpieces from my little artist

Now that you've gotten the quick tour…
Here's the plan for the posts for this week… Tomorrow (Tuesday) I'm going to give you all the details on this stinkin' awesome mosaic accent wall. I'm not sure I'm allowed to say something I did was awesome, but man I love it!

Wednesday, I'm going to tell you all about Idea Paint and how it can turn almost anything into a cool whiteboard surface!

Thursday, it's more Staples LOVE and I'll give you the 411 on these foam core faux canvases. And to think I almost bought 4 frames at 39.00 each! The entire project ended up costing me under $25!

There's actually one REALLY BIG step left before this room is finished. You might have been thinking that the walls are a little too plain and white, and I agree! They won't be that way for long! One crazy-talented Art Teacher from my school, who Kira has now titled"The Artist" is coming to doodle on the white walls with paint pens! Kira has all sorts of fun, things she wants doodled… peace signs, butterflies, and flowers are at the top of her list."The Artist" and I are coordinating our schedules, but once we do I'll be sure to do an update post! Until then, make sure you check back this week for all the tutorials and fun details of the room! So what do you think of my colorful bedroom makeover? Any favorite parts? Do tell!

This bedroom makeover was so fun to work on because we were challenged to combine both rustic and industrial styles together to make the space work! This room was huge, so we were able to do lots of fun DIY projects. Take a peek…

Now, to fully appreciate this room, you've got to see what it looked like before we started…

Talk about a transformation right?? You can watch the full episode online by clicking HERE.
We had a blast working with Tiffany and Jon and were so glad they BOTH liked the finished room!

Later this week we'll post all the juicy details about all the projects in the room, but for now, here's just a little room tour for ya…

This world map project wasn't featured in the show much (there's just never enough time), but we loved how it turned out and it might be one of my favorite projects of the makeover!

After a fun trip to one of the BEST salvage shops around, we built these reclaimed wood floating shelves using conduit pipe! The awesome shop we went to is Architectural Antiques in Bedminster, PA. Click here to visit their Facebook page for more info!

Using a mantle we found at the salvage shop, we used wood slices to create a faux fireplace look. It really helped define the sitting area we created!

One of our wildcard projects (AKA we'd never tried it before and just crossed our fingers it would be awesome) was our metal headboard. Toilet bowl cleaner and inexpensive metal sheets never looked so good!!

And stealing the show… herringbone barn doors with a custom made track for UNDER $200! I love how these doors are barn, but with such a modern twist. The yellow color and the arrow pattern made these doors super unique!
So, go check out the episode HERE, and then check back this week for all the complete tutorials!!

We've gotta know… What project is your fav? Any you'd like to try?

For this makeover, we had a little boy that loved Pirates of the Caribbean (I love it too, but probably more for Johnny Depp than the actual movie! Ha!) He wanted a bedroom that was fit for a pirate, so we quickly decided to transform this room into a bunk on The Black Pearl! Two days, and lot DIY projects later we had ourselves a pirate ship!

The tricky thing with any themed room is the fact that kids grow out of things quickly. Who knows, next year it might be space aliens! We wanted to create a room that felt authentically like a pirate ship, but also could grow with Jack.

The nautical elements in this room are classic and could easily be swapped out to whatever his next phase is. For now it's all pirate!! Garrr!!
Here's some before an after action for ya! Before

After

Before

After

To check out the DIY projects in this room Click Here

To watch this full episode online Click HERE!

This project was featured in an episode of our DIY show Knock It Off. To watch this episode online, click HERE.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Planked walls are the perfect touch for a coastal or nautical room (or in this case a pirate ship bedroom) but buying that much wood would cost a pretty penny! Instead, we chose to use paneling. We're known for being anti-panneling, but we're usually talking about 1970s paneling that screams"outdated basement!"This paneling, when hung correctly works like a charm!

Lowe's sells 8x4 panels of light greyish paneling that has a nice coastal feel to it.

The key to making sure it doesn't turn 70's granny basement, is installing the panels so the lines go horizontally. That's also what gives the nautical planked feeling. We measured our walls and outlets and switches so we could template and cut them out of the panels.

We used a circular saw to cut full lengths and a jigsaw to cut out the outlets and switches.

This is definitely a case of measure twice, cut once- so make sure you check and double check your measurements so that your panels install easily. To install them, we just used a nail gun and made sure we hit a few studs, and got all the edges secure.

You will have some seam lines where your panels meet, but it blends in nicely with the coastal feel. We also added rope along the seam between the ceiling and panels, but you could easily use crown molding if you want a more finished, less nautical look.

These planked walls made a huge impact on the space and were super inexpensive, at $15 per panel, it's way more affordable (and easier to install) than individual planks of wood.

To check out more about the other projects in this room, check out our Knock It Off DIYs Page and to watch this episode online Click HERE!

This project was featured in an episode of our DIY show Knock It Off. To watch this episode online, click HERE.

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When we started working on this Pirate themed bedroom, the homeowners told us their son totally wanted bunk beds. We knew we couldn't give them just any bunk beds, and outside of IKEA, really nice bunk beds can be crazy expensive! We decided to build our own bunks and to make it look like they're floating, just like something off of a ship! These floating bunk beds would work in a pirate room, nautical room, and any room at all if you tweaked the style a bit!

Building these bunk beds was a lot easier than they look! The first thing we needed to do was make all of our cuts. We used pine boards, but got 2x8s for the main frame so that they were nice and sturdy. There were no fancy angled cuts, so it made the process really easy!

We measured the size of our two mattresses- we had a twin and a double- and then made a simple box frame to fit each mattress and added 1x3 slats.

For the slats, we used regular screws, but for the frame we used RSS screws (Rugged Structural Strength), which are specially engineered to hold a lot of weight. Make sure you go with the RSS screws if you plan to make these- they're what make these bunks super secure!
After staining the wood our very favorite grey stain (a custom mix we had made) it was time to attach it to the walls. Again we used RSS screws intended for heavy weights, and we attached it to the two walls. We found our studs with a stud finder and made sure we were attaching to them. That part is super important- we don't want our floating bunk beds to turn into falling bunk beds!: )

We were a little stumped at first about how to suspend the one floating corner, but after exploring all of our options, we went with pipe and a flange. They're strong, can hold a ton of weight, and fit with the style we were going for. We attached one flange to the bed and the other to the wall, again making sure we went into a stud.

We added a fun rope ladder, popped in the mattresses and had ourselves some AWESOME floating bunk beds! The extra addition of bedside lanterns brought the whole pirate bunk theme together! We were so excited with how these turned out! It's one of our favorite things when an idea we have in our heads actually turns out just how we pictured it!

To check out other posts about the projects in this room, check out our Knock It Off DIYs Page and to watch this episode Click HERE!