Eight months ago, we started the process of making over our bland spare bedroom into a fun, unique little playroom for our sweet little boy. Nothing about the makeover required that much time though – we just took our time and did projects as we had time and I’m so pleased with how it turned out. Even better, Jase LOVESSS his playroom. Every evening after dinner, we ask him if he wants “to go upstairs” and he runs to the stairs, army crawls up them as quick as he can, and runs down the hallway straight to his playroom.

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The Design

I always start with a room design board and that design board kept me organized for the entire length of this project. After a lot of debate, I chose to go with a subtle superhero themed mixed with mostly light and airy neutrals to compliment the small room size. To add a pop of color and make the room gently scream boy, I added a modern accent wall into the design in a beautiful medium sage green color called Sherwin Williams Halegon green (SW6213).

The Closet Transformation

My friend Katie Lamb has transformed quite a few of the closets in her home into functional but beautiful spaces, and my husband followed her plans to transform the closet in this room into a fun little sitting nook. I ordered this cushion from Amazon and wrapped it in a neutral cream fabric from Hobby Lobby’s home decor fabric section.

The perfect finishing detail for this space was a custom color wallpaper print from Livette’s Wallpaper (we ordered the color “roof”). I wanted something that was minimal but just gave a perfect pop of whimsy and interest to the space, and it has turned out to be my very favorite spot in the entire room! It’s amazing how wallpaper can take a space from being blah to being absolutely eye catching.

I was a little nervous to hang traditional wallpaper since neither of us had any experience with it, but it turned out to be relatively simple and straight forward. Livette’s packages their wallpaper with the utmost care and sends detailed directions for care and application that put my mind completely at ease. You need to properly prep your wall by cleaning and ensuring that any fresh paint has had a few weeks to dry. From there the application is so much easier than it used to be a few decades ago – you just apply to the glue to the wall with a paint roller, line the paper up, and smooth it out from the center of the paper out to the edges. It was definitely a two person job, but in my opinion doable for any novices just like us!

I would HIGHLY recommend Livette’s for any wallpaper needs as their customer service is a dream to work with, their shipping time is prompt, their packaging is top notch, and our wallpaper is holding up perfectly even with a toddler consistently playing in this space daily!

Toys & Storage

For Christmas, we got Jase this awesome ball pit. It was a little bit of a splurge but totally worth it! I ordered 250 of the balls to fill it up but still give him plenty of room to play in it.

I’m a huge fan of these large baskets from Target for toy storage. It is so easy to just toss everything in them in a few seconds and walk out with a perfectly clean room.

This slide is an Amazon find and we absolutely love it. It has a little basketball hoop on the side and one of Jase’s favorite things is when we yell “SWISHHHH” when he drops his little ball through the hoop. He’ll spend all day sending his toys down the slide and then take a face first dive himself.

Books & Fun Details

I grew up in a home with ZERO tv and I spent most of my childhood with my head stuck in a good fiction book. Personally, I think reading is magical – it fosters creativity, imagination, and throws boredom out the window. So, I’ve been slowly building up a good book stash for Jase to enjoy.

My husband built these bookshelves using these plans from buildsomething.com. I love the wood detailing on them and they’re incredibly sturdy. I had WAY too much fun picking out color coordinating book with excellent reviews and they’re even more fun to read in person!

I completed this IKEA play kitchen makeover a few months ago and you can find all those details here. For the floating shelves above the kitchen, I added a little bit of color and found a few really fun small shop finds. The canvas is from a friend’s shop called House Hathaway and she offers personalized fairy tale canvases. You can pick out your child’s hair style, hair color, and eye color and they get to be the hero of their own fairy tale!

After ordering the canvas, I reached out to a book shop on Instagram and asked for a custom set to match the canvas in color and theme. I think I squealed a little bit when the owner, Andrea, sent me a photo of her final idea. Jase already has the coolest set of classic adventure books for whenever he’s ready to read them in a few years.

The Accent Wall

For this accent wall design, we used 1×2 primed MDF boards from Home Depot and mapped out where we wanted the boards to go with a pencil before we started actually nailing up boards. Once we got that figured out, we started with the larger vertical boards and my husband used 45 degree cuts for the all the angled boards.

I ordered this wood cutout from Etsy because I wanted to give the playroom a greater purpose. It’s easy to lose sight of the great responsibility we have as parents in the mundane day to day tasks, and I wanted us to be reminded every single day that our little boy was perfectly knit together for a purpose someday. God chose US to be his parents so that we can foster all his gifts, talents, and abilities to one day bless the world. Maybe he’ll be a real life super hero someday like his daddy. Or maybe he’ll do something totally different. But one thing is for certain: we’re going to do everything we can to make sure he knows he’s loved, he’s capable of amazing things, and we will always be there for him every step of the way.

Sources

Wallpaper: in custom color “roof” here

Personalized fairy tale canvas: here

Instagram book shop: here