Tools Guide

I cant believe I finally am posting this! I LOVE designing kid rooms. It' is one of the funnest things to do in the whole world!!! But photographing the finished product is always a little intimidating to me, because I want everything to be perfect, and it is hard to put your work out there for other people to see. But I am just sticking to my guns & being me. These are design choices I've made, and I couldn't be happier with the result. Like seriously, this room is awesome!



Jason's room is my new favorite space in our house. I wanted to create a light & airy, yet industrial & rustic room for my little boy to grow into. Personally, I find baby blue is overdone, so I went with a "restoration hardware" grey color.  I also wanted a subtle pattern on a feature wall, but knew I couldn't go crazy with it, because we will be selling this house in a few years. So I went with the temporary solution, and used some awesome vinyl wall decals from Walls Need Love. The walls are so bright that it's hard to photograph them... but they look AMAZING and are a great way to balance out blank spaces in walls!



Funny story: when we moved in all the rooms were a yellow cream color, so we got white paint for the nursery. When I went to put it on the walls, I realized it was just a shade lighter than what we already had *face palm* I knew in my heart that I wanted grey, so I went with my gut and took the plunge by mixed some dark grey paint I had on hand with half the "yellow white" paint we just bought. I put it on one of the walls and fell in love with the color. But then the embarrassing part... one more wall later I ran out of paint! Opps, so I had to mix more and match it exactly. Thankfully it worked. Moral of the story: don't buy paint before bringing a sample back first.




I can't wait to show you this next room element! This is the one part I've been hiding from you all...

My husband serves in the military in the USMC, and his job is to repair airplanes. And both my grandpas served in the military, one being in for over 20 years. I wanted to tie that patriotism in with the room somehow, so I stared out by adding the bull dog statue above, because bull dogs are the Marine's mascot. :)



Then I printed out some vintage US Military posters, but I knew I wanted more. I needed a BIG focal point in the room; I mean, June has a teepee, so Jason needed something cool too! So I asked my husband to build me a toddler sized triple winged airplane! He looked at me like I was crazy (and I was!)



But he did it!!! Ahhhhhhhh! I am so in love with it! We modeled it after WWI & WWII era planes. Originally I had wanted it to be a mustard yellow plane, but my husband said, "If I'm going to build a plane, I'm going to build a real plane." Which meant no to yellow, haha! It's for Jason when he gets older, of course, but it feels so amazing to have something I thought would be impossible become a reality. Thanks babe! You are amazing!



We built a large trunk with reclaimed wood. Thus the rustic part of the room.

If you follow my blog then you have probably already met Mr. Rhino. He is another of those ideas in my head that I didn't know how to make a reality. Sometimes I feel like I have a hundred tabs open in my brain (all the time actually, haha!) I wanted a rhinoceros rocking horse, but it seemed too hard to sew and build. One night I just felt crazy, and this is the result. We didn't cut the rockers right, so right now he's just an unmovable rocking rhino. Haha!



I made this salt dough geometric baby mobile too. Pretty much everything in this room was DIY'ed.



Here's another view of the airplane, isn't it amazing? I did all the painting. *wink*

The baby bassinet was a gift from a friend to us. Apparently it was a family heirloom. It was a dark wood color, but we painted it white & have used it for both our children. Don't you just LOVE it!

And what baby's room would be complete without hand knit blankets & cloud and mountain pillows? Oh, and another rhino! Since the room had grey I thought of doing an elephant theme, but that just seemed overdone to me as well. Then a light bulb turned on & I thought of Rhinos! Duh!

Here's are to more of my DIY furniture builds. They may not be super functional, but I love the ascetics they bring to the room! Haha!

We brought June's drop cloth rug into this room.

Yet another rhino!

I moved the airplane over to the other side of the room so you could see how awesome it is!



The room is actually really small, but I was able to incorporate all the little details I wanted. Thanks for all the inspiration Pinterest! ;)

We built some AWESOME floating shelves for the gallery wall. It was so inexpensive to build, but it adds such a huge impact to the room.



Every kid needs a marquee letter, right? I decided he needed a non-girly version, to go with June's colorful one.



This is my creative diaper storage solution. Haha!



I LOVE the Uncle Sam Poster I made... Haha!

Oh yeah, can't forget football! We are Patriots Fan's around here!

What is cuter than baby sized human clothes? The hat is a kangaroo leather hat that belonged to my great grandpa. He recently passed away, and it's nice to include him in my little boy's room.

I had to include my basket obsession in this room somehow, haha!

Little baby details make the space so special. :)

I can't believe how cute everything turned out. :)

I found great coaster wheels for both the crate & airplanes on ebay. I LOVE the industrial vibes they bring to the space.

It's hard to see, but I also hung a garland of salt dough star beads I made.

They match the ones on the baby mobile.


And what nursery would be complete without a cute & cuddly baby?!


I am one blessed mommy!

Hope you enjoyed the room tour! I am so stoked to share all the DIY's from it. What do YOU want to see first?

All the new posts from this series are in the below list: