I didn't get much time to blog last week, but I had very good excuses. (Well, besides being sick as a dog for a few days...) We spent the last two weeks cranking out lots of projects for the big kids' room makeovers - some quick and easy and others that were pretty time intensive. Here's a quick rundown of what all we worked on before I show you the big reveals. Let's start with Wyatt's room and go from easiest to hardest. First, this quick lamp upgrade. It was so easy I'm not really sure it can even qualify as a "project" we worked on. The lamp used to live in our living room at our old house and had the gold shade that you see on the left. I needed one more lamp for his room and the gold worked since it's a Notre Dame color, but the shade not so much. I picked up a plain white barrel shade at Target one day and plopped it on top. Instant upgrade and now totally acceptable for a teen boy's room!
While we're on lamps, here's his desk lamp that I found for a mere 15 bucks at Home Goods (a great place to shop for lamps!). I liked the shape of it, and I also like that the inside of the shade was navy blue - another Notre Dame color.
It probably would've worked just fine in his room as-is, but I thought painting it gold would make it a little more "Notre Dame" and also tie it in to the other gold lamp from above. I just taped off the cord and the inside of the shade and hit it with a few coats of gold spray paint.
(In the background of the picture above, you can see the edge of a bulletin board that I painted navy. I guess that counts as a project since it's something I had to do, but I didn't take pics of it.)
Wyatt already had two Notre Dame posters that I planned on reusing in his new room. At our old house, we had just stuck them in cheapo poster frames that kept falling apart. For his new room makeover, we put together some quick wooden frames out of 1x3 pine boards and painted them Notre Dame Navy. (One poster is of the final game in the original stadium, the other is the new stadium.)
The biggest project for his room was a new bookshelf. We used the same Anna White plan that we used for the bookshelves in Katie Wynn's room, but made his a little wider than hers. It got two coats of Notre Dame Navy too. (Did you know Home Depot has all the official "team colors?" This is legit Notre Dame Navy here, people.)
The bookshelf looked good navy but I think we really took it up a notch - made it a little more "Notre Dame," if you will - when we added some Notre Dame Gold trim to each of the shelves. (Sorry for the cut off photos.)
I think that's all the big projects for his room. Now let's move on to Anna's.
All the existing furniture - their bedside table and dresser from their old shared room - went to Wyatt's room, so she got more new pieces of furniture. We had purchased this little desk and stool for the beach house last year, but never ended up using it.
I thought it would make a cute little vanity in her room so I went to town girly-ing it up. Again, there was no real theme in her room, so going colorful was the name of the game. I toyed with just doing it solid white, but thought as she gets older and uses it to put makeup on, a white top might get messy. Final verdict was to paint the top purple and I added an inset square in pink. The seat of the stool also got painted pink.
To give her a bedside table and some drawers for storage, we ordered yet another Ikea Rast dresser and added some trim to it just like this one from last year. It got the same paint treatment as the vanity - white base with purple top and pink inset square.
The Rast dresser and the vanity both got outfitted with these colorful and sparkly knobs from Hobby Lobby.
The biggest and coolest project - even though we half-assed (excuse my language) it because we were running out of time - was a rotating bookshelf. It's a knock off of this one from PB Teen that retails for $599. We didn't have a plan to go by so we made it up as we went along and, while it turned out fine for Anna's room, it's one project that I would love to have another stab at because I know we could do it SO much better! Maybe when we have more time and energy...
From the front it looks like a regular bookshelf, but the whole bookshelf is sitting on a base with turntable bearings so that it rotates. One side has a full-length mirror on it, one side is a corkboard, and the back has six pegs for Anna to hang things on.
The corkboard side is the side I'm most disappointed in. I was trying to finish that side the morning of the room reveals, and I still had to get it from the shop and to her room and then style it. I was majorly rushed for time! My cork edges looked horrible thanks to some warped wood not lining up with my straight edges. It would've been fine if I could've trimmed it out with a small piece of wood trim, but I didn't have time to cut and paint anything else, so I glued blue ribbon around the edges. Yea. Also across the part where I pieced the cork together. Less than ideal. And I didn't think about it when I chose the blue ribbon (I was thinking it would match her room) but it kinda just looks like it has painter's tape on it. Womp, womp. I finished it up thinking I could redo it later when I had more time...part of me just wants to rip it down and paint that section with chalkboard paint and call it a day, but Anna has already seen it now and says the bulletin board is one of her favorite things. So guess it stays.
Now you should be caught up on what's been keeping us so busy! I can't wait for you to see how all these things came together in their new rooms. They look so good!