The boys room design: the plans

I’ve known for quite a while that I wanted our boys to share a room. We have enough room for them each to have their own space, but I think it’s nice to grow up sharing a room. I shared with my sister almost my entire life, and I think we’re closer because of it. 

So, as Penn approached age 2, and the age when we might start thinking about moving him from his crib, I started thinking about boys room design ideas. I wanted to do two twin beds, parallel to each other, and I wanted to leave the walls the same dark blue color (Benjamin Moore Hale Navy). Not so much because I love navy in this room, because I’m actually not super into it, but because painting over navy is a real b*tch.

Other than that, I wasn’t quite sure where I wanted to go with the design. Until I saw it this adorable pillow from Serena & Lily. 

It was cute but elevated, and felt perfect for a room for two little boys, and the pale blue and red would complement the navy walls we already head. Once I get an idea I run hard with it, and I think by the end of the day I had also found and ordered the wallpaper, which is from Burke Decor. 

It shipped super-fast and my husband and I were covered in wallpaper paste literally like three days later. I’d originally planned to have someone else install the wallpaper, but I got three separate quotes at $400 each. That, plus the $300 price of the wallpaper felt like a lot for a single wall, so we DIYed. It went better (and was easier) than I’d expected. (I recommend this YouTube video for hanging unpasted wallpaper!)

Once the wallpaper went up things slowed down a little bit because I couldn’t figure out what to do about beds for the room. I’d originally wanted upholstered beds I’d found on One King’s Lane (see below), but when I got the fabric swatches the color wasn’t quite right. It was more of a denim blue color than in the picture, and I was looking for something a little more powdery.

I was stumped for a while, until I saw beautiful old Cannonball-style beds on Facebook marketplace. They were in great shape, and I figured I could paint them. Plus at only $100 for the pair, I was sold. 

For the paint color, I went back-and-forth between a high-gloss dark blue, and a pale French blue, and settles on navy.

The beds came out really nice, so I was happy with the color choice. Plus, it was one of my better furniture paint jobs, probably because I was worried about all the wear-and-tear they’d get living with two boys (I’ll share more on the process later!), or maybe I’ve made enough mistakes by now to know what not to do. 

So it’s coming together! But I still need to choose a rug, and I ended up having my mother-in-law make pillows similar to the S&L ones (that cost about $60 less per pillow), and get a few other little things. This is a rough mock-up of what the boys room design will look like when it’s done.

The only asterisk to this whole thing is that Penn isn’t really ready to move out of his green nursery quite yet. He’s a bad sleeper and I’m afraid he’ll wake his brother, but I’m happy to keep him little for little longer.