As you all probably know by now, I am a prolific decorator! Many of my rooms in the house have been redecorated several times and I’m forever coming up with new ideas and inspiration for our home.

So why do I find it so difficult to decorate a boy’s bedroom? 

When I was looking for inspiration on Pinterest for boys bedrooms, there seemed to be a serious lack of inspiration on there. All the rooms were coming back with the same old blue and white themes with a few space products thrown in and unimaginative storage solutions. I loved decorating our bedrooms but after 3 years of trying to figure out what to do with Zac’s room, I was running out of options (and the will to live).

My daughters room had a floraltastic wall mural with pink bed canopy and matching furniture. Our bedroom had been painted a dark blue with a new fireplace being added and lots of bright and beautiful bedding sets. Even the guest room had been given more love than my Sons room with another floral wall mural, fireplace and painted pink.

And then, this….

Boy’s Bedroom of horror

I just couldn’t picture how to decorate a boy’s bedroom! As you can see, once my Son was out of his toddler bed, we redecorated his room with a space theme but I was never very happy with the wallpaper. It was quite poor quality and made the room very dark. The whole room was just a horrible mismatch of furniture, soft furnishings and other horrors and I couldn’t really get my head around how I wanted it to look until I saw these photos.

At the time of planning my son’s bedroom, he was still heavily into dinosaurs so I loved these jungle themed rooms (he has now informed me dinosaurs are too babyish and he’s moved onto Minecraft and Roblox. I despair!) They were also very calming, light and fresh and I loved the natural feel to the rooms.

So, I set about creating a new mood-board for a boy’s bedroom.

Wallpaper

Just as I was planning my son’s bedroom, Rebel Walls got in touch with me to see if I wanted to do a collaboration which was perfect timing! I had seen their Mischievous Tiger, Lush on Pinterest so I ordered this wallpaper first and set about creating the jungle theme around it. It was so easy to put up (see how I put the wallpaper up here) and I am super impressed with the results.

Breaking up the Jungle

I wanted natural materials and a lot of green, but also knew I needed another injection of colour to prevent it from looking like an SOS stakeout den. The wallpaper has a lot of orange and mustard tones and with my new found love of mustard, I knew this was the perfect colour combination for a boy’s bedroom. I decided to get a few mustard toned accessories and went for mustard curtains and an ochre table lamp from Dunelm.

Sweet dreams

We needed to get rid of the cabin bed as the slide that came with it turned Zac’s bedroom into a dangerous obstacle course with kids hurtling down the slide at breakneck speed and slamming into the chair opposite. I wanted to create a cosy feel in his bedroom and somewhere he could sit with his friends and play Lego.

I was inspired by the house beds I had seen on Pinterest and Instagram in other boy’s bedrooms, I liked how some people had wrapped ivy and other faux plants around the frame which gave the impression of the jungle creeping out of the wallpaper and around the room.

I recently collaborated with Wayfair and they sent me this Hattie House Bed and mattress. Ever since we have put it into my sons’ room, he has spent less and less time creeping into our bedroom at night and elbowing me continuously in the face. So the bed has definitely been a win win!

Wardrobe Woes

We bought the original wardrobe in a hurry when we first moved into the house, had no money left after an expensive move and realised Zac’s last bedroom had built in wardrobes. His clothes were now piled up on the floor in the corner so we found the cheapest (and flimsiest) wardrobe ever. The doors lasted about 5 weeks and there was enough room for 2 pairs of trousers and a thick jumper.

Made.com came to the rescue with the most stunning wardrobe for the room.

The Reema Wardrobe has a cane rattan front with a contemporary blue edging twist and when it arrived, I questioned my sanity of putting it in a small boy’s bedroom who just shrugged his shoulders when I proudly showed it off! Haha.

Bedside Table

I think I have the worlds largest collection of Ikea bedside tables in my house and my Son was sporting a rather water damaged (how???) brown bedside variety. Again, I knew I wanted to replace it but felt very uninspired by the variety out there.

Whilst looking for curtains and lamps on Dunelm, I came across this industrial style Urban Rustic bedside table. I loved the grain on the wood and new it would fit into the jungle theme perfectly.

Light shades and rugs

Keeping with the jungle theme, the space light shade had to go and there was no other light shade that would go in the room other than this Elmley rattan style shade from Habitat.

And with so much going on in the room already, the grey carpet had to be covered! It was either that or I was going to have to rip up the carpet but I realised that the Husband would start divorce proceedings if I did such a thing (the carpets were only put down 3 years ago to great expense! In fact, I think divorce would have been cheaper).

I went with a plain white Berber style rug from La Redoute. That brings my total of berber style rugs in the house to 4 and counting! 🙂

The room is not yet complete…

I still have a few things left to do in this room before I can tick it off the to do list. After stripping back the wallpaper to prepare for the new Rebel Walls mural to go on, I realised why I wanted to wallpaper Zac’s room in the first place because the walls are in such bad condition. I’m going to sand the walls down and paint them. I also need to upcycle his chest of drawers!

Paint

I’m going with Tranquil Dawn by Dulux. I love the calming and comforting qualities of this colour and feel it’s the perfect shade for a boy’s bedroom. The soft tones will not heavily distract from the wallpaper.

 

Chest of drawers

And finally, another upcycle! The chest of drawers in Zac’s room has been upcycled and painted more times than I’ve had hot dinners. I love the geometric pattern that is currently painted on, but the colours no longer go with the room. I was looking at buying a new cane rattan style chest of drawers to go with the wardrobe but they are mindbogglingly expensive, so I have bought some cane and going to attempt it myself. Coming to a blog soon….

I’m really pleased with how the boy’s bedroom is looking already! The colours and furniture fit perfectly together and once I’ve got the finishing touches in there, I can finally feel happy that my Son can go to bed in a room that has been given some love. Not that he cares! Hahaha.

Mel x