We finally got around to re-doing my oldest son’s bedroom and adding some fun boys room decor.  He and his younger brother have shared a room since the time the younger one was 18 months old.  My second and third children are 19 months apart in age, so my son was forced out of the crib and into his brother’s room.

As they got older, and bigger we decided to turn the guest bedroom into our oldest son’s room.  It didn’t make a lot of sense to keep a room empty for guests when our two boy’s were crammed in one room on top of one another.  So we just moved him over into that room but had essentially left it the same…with yellow walls and a flowered bedspread.

He has been in the room for over a year and a half now.  And I will tell you what…this kid is not a little boy anymore.  He has grown over 9 inches in the last year or so, taller than my height of 5 foot 9 inches and quickly gaining on my husband’s 6 foot 4 inches.

He will be turning 15 here very soon and I think I am having a bit of a “mom meltdown”!  Where has the time gone?  In three very short years he could be out of the house and serving a mission for our church or off to college.  THREE years!?!  I have only THREE summers left with this kid before things change.  Three years goes by so fast!

So, I made it a priority to get his room finished so that he could actually enjoy it while he is still around…sniff, sniff!

We put the other furniture in storage (the headboard and dresser which were ones that my parents had bought for me when I was a teenager) and made a headboard out of some old pallet wood.  If you follow me on Instagram you may have seen some pictures of this process.  I will share a full tutorial for how we made it here shortly.  Best part…the headboard cost us NOTHING but a little elbow grease!  You can’t beat that!

We picked up some shelves at Lowes and some décor at Hobby Lobby to add some color to his room.  My son’s favorite color was orange.  He wanted orange walls…I did not.  Orange is my least favorite color.  So we made a compromise…I got my gray walls and we found him this fun orange bedspread at Target.  It is still there right now if you are interested.  And…I actually really love the bedspread…and so does he!

We picked up these awesome gray lockers at the  NPS store in Salt Lake City (a salvage and freight recovery company that sells used industrial and office items at a great price).  We picked these babies up for $25.  They had a dent on the side, but it popped right back out with a good hit with a mallet.  There were a bit difficult to maneuver into our basement and through a freakishly weird hallway.  We barely got them in with a fraction of an 1/8 inch to spare.

This kid loves maps and geography so I knew I wanted to work that element into the room somehow.  I found a map on Amazon for $1 (with a $3 shipping fee haha), but it was perfect.

We bought it and then put it onto some of our left over pallet wood from the headboard. For the Wood Pallet Map Tutorial click here:  Wood Pallet Map Tutorial

I am so happy with how it turned out.  I was inspired by a picture I found on the internet and will share that with you when I share the tutorial.  It is one of my favorite parts about his new room.

This kid LOVES to be around the water.  He is on the High School swim team and just this past week started playing Water Polo with the High School team.  He is still in Jr. High here but is a freshman (Jr. High is 7th through 9th grade) and is allowed to play on the High School teams.  It keeps us busy, but we are enjoying watching him become a man-child ;)!

We didn’t want to buy him a new dresser since most of his clothes are stored in his closet.  But we found a great deal on a tool chest drawer set over Christmas at Sears and are using that as a dresser.  I figure he will be able to take it with him when he moves out.  He is pretty handy and helps quite a bit on the projects we do around the house.

I am so happy this is finally finished.  And, now that his room is finished, we have moved on to repainting and refreshing my younger son’s room to make it his own.  And at 12, it might be time to get rid of those Mickey Mouse sheets…!