gabe and noah’s big kid room.

I’m very excited to show you my latest project, but first, a few “before” pictures.

The above is my personal favorite, as it includes Noah’s feet, which he calls “tootsie toes.” [Aside: Noah is self-correcting his quirky little words and phrases more and more lately, and my heart is mourning. He’s the last one we get to hear those from].

It’s hard to tell from the photos, but the boys’ room was in rough shape, from 3 years of wear and tear (and I do mean wear and tear). The walls were dirty, drawn on, and battered.

As you see, things had grown a bit cluttered.

We originally decorated the room for a toddler and a preschooler, and the reality is, Gabe and Noah, at 6 and 5, are big kids now. I wanted to give them a space that was a little more grown up.

My main goal was “Keep it simple.”

They love, love to make messes, but don’t actually play with many of their toys anymore. So I like to keep most things in the attic, and leave out just enough to give them things to play with, but also tidy up in a short amount of time.

I asked how Noah felt about giving his train table and wooden trains to his friend, Jonah, and he loved the idea. He’s such a generous kid.

The boys’ favorite toys right now are LEGO’s, stuffed animals, and dress up. They still regularly play with DUPLO’s too. They like their wooden blocks and Magna-Tiles as well, but we keep those in the living room.

David’s dad retired a couple of weeks ago and offered his services for the bedroom update, and my cousin babysat one day last week for me so I could make the 1 1/2 trek to IKEA in Charlotte by myself (that was my favorite part of the process!).

And here we are now:

I went with my house tried-and-true gray for the walls, because it’s a nice, warm neutral. Steve very kindly removed all the glow-in-the-dark stars and putty, and painted the ceiling as well (word to the wise: never, ever stick those things on your ceiling). Isn’t it amazing the transformation that a coat of paint can accomplish?

The bedroom feels so clean now.

There’s a funny story about the chest of drawers. My vision for the bedroom included the HEMNES dresser, which is the same style and color as the chest, but obviously long and low, as dressers are. I planned to hang the poster over it and the wood shelf where the poster is. I got home from IKEA on Tuesday, ran errands while Steve and Judah pulled out every single piece and worked for two solid hours starting to build the dresser, at which point I came home to discover it was the wrong one.

I almost cried.

I’d just like to say here, that I know I can be scatter-brained, but I checked back at the photo I took on the IKEA showroom floor, and it was not my mistake! The wrong number was on the display dresser. Sigh.

But you know what? It was a good lesson in not taking myself and my decorating dreams too seriously. I made myself laugh instead of cry at the error. I got used to the chest of drawers, even though the boys can only reach the bottom drawers. Ah well. They’ll have this for a long time, and will eventually be tall enough. In the meantime, I use the upper drawers to store extra sheets.

I actually really like the way it looks now!

The boys love Pokemon, so I asked Judah to help me choose a poster to surprise them with. They’re very happy with this one.

They’re growing up fast, but I’m personally happy that they still enjoy stuffed animals so much (“stuffies” as they’re called in our house). They recently chose to spend their money on little Beanie Boo’s, which are large-eyed, scary looking stuffed toys that the younger boys’ and Amie are infatuated with.

As you can see, we kept the pine furniture and shelf, but I replaced the colored, battered toy bins with fresh, neutral white bins. I found the planet print on Minted.com, and the globe on the clearance rack at Home Goods.

Gabe and Noah enjoy listening to CD’s during their afternoon play time. They have several to choose from, and their two favorites are the Mary Poppins Broadway score, and their Classical Conversations memory albums. They’re very cultured!

I think aloe plants are fun for boys’ rooms, and this little shelf is full of curios: a camel from their grandparents’ trip to Israel, an elephant their aunt bought in South Africa, and a set of Russian dolls my family had when I was growing up. I love knick-knacks that tell a story.

I kept the boys’ duvets, and just bought them new duvet covers from IKEA. You really can’t beat the price of IKEA bedding, and it’s nice to be able to throw everything in the wash. We just use fitted bottom sheets and duvets for all the kids, European-style.

You’ll notice that the curtains are gone. In general, I prefer the look of curtains, but they were just a big mess in here — always hanging haphazardly. Plus, we learned from Judah and Amie’s bedroom makeover a couple years ago, that small rooms feel larger without curtains. I like the clean look, especially in a boys’ room.

Probably the new possession they’re most thrilled with is:

A $9 LEGO “trough” from Wal-Mart! That’s right, now they can easily find the pieces they’re looking for, and everything can be stowed under their bed at clean-up time. The boys’ keep mini-figures and weapons in one of their white toy drawers.

We exchanged the broken dress-up bin for a larger, sturdier one, and purged dress-up clothes/accessories/weapons. We use this closet for extra clothes storage for the whole family because closet space is still a bit hard to come by around here.

I was very happy to have Steve hang the boys’ new jacket hooks low enough that even Noah can reach, and am keeping my fingers crossed that it means jackets won’t be thrown in a pile on the floor any longer (but the jury’s out on that one).

And there you have it, my friends! We really didn’t need to change all that much, but I’m so pleased with how the space turned out. Judah and Amie have both commented that they enjoy hanging out with the boys in their new room so much more, and as I write this, Gabe and Noah are busy playing LEGO’s.

Can you believe how much they’ve grown up?

Three years ago:

Today: