a tour of miles’ big boy bedroom

My nesting urge has been split (or perhaps multiplied) between the nursery and Miles’ big boy bedroom. The nursery is still getting wrapped up, but I’m finally ready to share Miles’ big boy room with you! Come and take a look around…

It’s still a pretty minimalist room, with some shelves, wall hooks and eventually a rug I would like to add someday, but it’s working out really well for now. Miles LOVES it and it’s been really easy to keep picked up. (Wish I could say the same for the rest of the house!) I have decided to keep the toys to a minimum and just have a small collection of books in his room. That way this room is all about resting and reading and his play is for the rest of the house or outside. His stuffed animals are tucked in one of his under bed shelves, where he can get them at night if needed and extra blankies are in the other drawer. I love that he can get both of those things without getting out of bed. The two posters above his bed? I made them out of his artwork and his favorite book covers. Keep scrolling, I talk more about those at the end of this post.

The small frames above the dresser each hold an iphone photo enhanced with Shake it photo and were printed in a 5×5 inch size.

Miles LOVES pointing to his favorite photos, that are just from our regular everyday life, and talking about what he’s doing in them. The photos are of him at Science Central, the library, our studio, our kitchen and his roller skates. Good times.

Miles was running around the room naked, getting ready to go swimming after his nap, so I threw a blanket on him and he got into the quickie shoot. That bee on his bed is a remnant from his “Bee Happy” themed nursery from his baby days. Awwwww…

You may recall that we put a magnet board up in Miles’ room. It continues to be a hit. I ended up getting a basket for him to put all of his letter magnets in it so the thing wasn’t crammed full all the time. He likes to steal photos out of frames from around the house to put on his board. That photo of Miles and our friends Chris and Amy are totally beat up from all of his playing. Oh well, photos are meant to be enjoyed, right?

I’ve had these book covers for ages, never wanting to throw them away but also knowing they would never survive on the books. So I threw them in frames I had lying around the house and they have been waiting to be hung for months. It’s nice to finally have them up on the wall.

So let’s talk about the two posters above his bed that I created. We had this HUGE blank space on the wall and his room is really dark, so I wanted to brighten it up with something big and bright. I decided to make two 24×36 inch poster size prints because that’s the largest you can buy a standard sized frame for, and I thought it would fit the space well. My original thought was to create two simple collages of his artwork and frame them side by side. I eventually came up with the idea to do just one collage of his photographed artwork and I would then create a collage of his favorite book’s covers. I’m IN LOVE with these posters, really proud of them and Miles is ADORABLE pointing to his artwork and favorite book covers. I LOVE that he loves all the prints in his room. He talks about his favorites all the time. It makes me so happy! Here are the jpgs. of the designs I created, since it’s really hard to photograph them as prints. By the way, if you have kids and haven’t read some of the books from the book poster, add them to your list. They are some of our favorites!

I created the two posters in Photoshop in a 24×36 inch sized document. Each image had to be color corrected and brightness enhanced and then of course I had to lay them all out the way I wanted and get the alignment right. I had just photographed Miles’ art on a white canvas board standing above them on a chair in my kitchen with natural light. The canvas board looked pretty grey on the white background so I had to do some “replace color” work to get all the bright white areas around some of the artwork. I wasn’t completely successful in doing that, so the artwork images aren’t perfect. So next time I do it, I’ll just take a stack of his art to the studio so I can get the light more consistent. However, I’m totally ok with the imperfection of it too.

For anyone wondering, I had them printed through my professional print lab like you would prints. If you want to do something like this, I would suggest using my favorite print lab for consumers, which is www.mpix.com. (I suggest them for all your regular print needs too.)

It was a lot of work, but I’m THRILLED to have these posters and I have a long term plan for them. Every few years I want to update these prints with new artwork and new favorite book covers. Then, down the road, Miles will have some fun posters of his artwork and books he loved as a child. Also, down the road we will be replacing those frames as they are horribly cheap. (like SO cheaply made I can’t even believe it.) However, I was impatient and those were the only white ready to buy poster frames I could find in Fort Wayne. It’s really hard to find well made poster frames, at least locally. Ugh. If King Baby 2.0 ends up wanting a set like this, I’ll do a better job of finding nicer frames for the long haul.

So that’s a tour of Miles’ room. If you have any suggestions on the other blank spots on his walls or floor, feel free to comment. Interior decorating does not come naturally or easy for me, so I would love to hear any thoughts of suggestions. Also, I would love to hear what is useful for your kids in their rooms, as I’m more practical when it comes to decorating.

Oh and I thought I would end this post with the guy who all of this is for! Look who likes to be in front of the camera again! That’s a nice change!

Shopping Resources:

Bed, dresser, shelf, bedside table, white bedside lamp, magnet board, knitted blanket and bedding are from Ikea. I’m so generic that it’s basically an entire Ikea room, but man, we just couldn’t hold back on our last shopping trip there. I just love the simple designs of their stuff. Oh and our master bedroom furniture cost so much that it makes me nervous to even vacuum around it for fear of denting it. So I wanted to keep the cost low on the furnishings in his room so he could enjoy it without us holding our breath. The quality of everything is so great too, so we are all thrilled with everything.

Cheap poster frames courtesy of JoAnn’s fabrics.

Square frames are from Pottery Barn.

The small black baskets were just picked up from good ‘ol Big Lots.

Black mini club chair, drapes and drapery rod are from Target.