Grand Little Place

I’ve always loved the idea of our boys sharing a room.  My sister and I shared a room when I was growing up and in retrospect I’m glad that it was an experience we were able to share (for better or worse).  When the boys were in the infant and toddler years I didn’t want to rock the boat with their sleep schedules, but a few years ago the boys began talking about bunk beds and sharing a room.  Since they were interested and everyone was old enough we grabbed the opportunity to create a shared boys bedroom with bunk beds for them. I’m so glad that we did it when it was on their minds because the transition ended up being very smooth.  They’ve now shared a room for a year and a half and the experience has been overwhelmingly positive.

We worried that our oldest son would have a hard time giving up ‘his’ room for the shared space but there was nearly no issue!  The allure of the a shared boys bedroom WITH bunk beds proved to be just the motivator for them to really jump into the new space together.  The boys and I did a deep clean to the space once quarantine started and I wrapped up a few teeny outstanding projects that had been lingering.  Since everything looked perfectly clean (which NEVER happens!) I snuck in and finally got pictures.  Let’s take a look!

I’ve shared glimpses of our entryway and the boys gallery wall but I thought it might be interesting to show how those relate to the boys bedroom.  The upstairs of our home was one of the first things that I fell in love with when we toured our house.  Tho the wallpaper will eventually go, this area with the loft, catwalk and skylighted rooms feel like a tree house.

This is the part where I declare my love for the Ikea Kallax but also my disdain for how this room ended up being so ‘Ikea’.  Long before we had this room in mind Chris and I bought the Kallax somewhat on a whim to help corral books and toys.  We bought it to put behind the couch in our living room but when we got it home it was too tall for our mid century couch, bummer.  Originally we had a small loveseat in here (that we sold because it was NOT soft!) and had planned to put the Kallax into the other bedroom that we thought would be a play room. As our basement foundation issues unfurled and my sister came to live with us we ended up with no play room (which is completely fine) and the Kallax came to live in the boys shared bedroom with bunk beds.

Let’s talk about those bunks beds shall we?  Here’s the thing – are there any good looking bunk beds out there?  If so they’ve evaded me.  The boys kept saying they wanted to share a room but to be honest I wasn’t 100% sure how it was going to go down.  I was nervous that they’d get into it and it might end up a disaster.  Also bunk beds are expensive, like real expensive.  One day we were at Ikea and the boys drifted to the Ikea Kura bunk beds.  It had the canopy/curtain attached to it and they LOVED it.  They had so much fun and begged for those bunk beds.  I was at a friends house shortly after that and her two kids (who are close in age to my boys) had the Kura as well and the boys again really loved them. I liked that the beds were shorter to the ground because I have two BOYS, and boys are….adventurous.  Not wanting a trip to the emergency room the shorter height greatly appealed to me.  I ended up finding the bed with the canopy on Craigslist for a steal so I just counted it done and done since I hadn’t found anything that I really loved.  (Does anyone else ever do this where you settle for something ‘ok’ when you don’t find something you LOVE?  I feel like it may not be the best design part of me but for someone who struggles to make decisions sometimes it’s just a relief to go that way.)

Of course I’m never one to leave well enough alone (particularly if I do settle into the decision) and the bed got a coat of paint (why they make it two toned I don’t know) and the originally canopy had to go.  I kept the hardware and used a dropcloth to make the canopy that is currently on the bed.  I also used a piece of electrical conduit and some conduit brackets to make the curtain rod (it’s spray painted).  The curtain is also made from drop cloth and is attached with curtain rings and clips.  The curtain helps make the bottom bunk almost as fun as the canopy/upper bunk.

We also ended up removing some of the panels behind the head of the bottom bunk.  We didn’t notice that it affected it stability but it helped open up the bed and feel like less of a giant cube in the middle of the room.

We have 3 of these Andy Warhol inspired Campbell Soup cans from years ago (2012!).  The project was a quick DIY from Young House Love.  We’ve had them for years and they are still going strong!

I’m a lover of symmetry and this wall makes me very happy.  We’ve had the dresser on the left since Davis was born, you can see it in action (with different drawer fronts) in his nursery here.  Howie’s dresser (see his nursery here) was on it’s last leg and wouldn’t have worked in here anyways so I set out to find a complimentary dresser to add.  This room was Davis’s before they began sharing it and the floating shelves were installed originally to go above a desk.  We like how the shelves fill that space so we knew we wanted to keep those and go with a low dresser for H.

When we redid this room originally for Davis he wanted a ‘jungle’ room.  I was all set to add wallpaper and showed him some mock ups when he hit me with a HARD ‘no’.  I was disappointed but kept looking for a focal point.  I eventually found this fabulous vintage painting on ShopGoodwill.com.  The painting (framed) was around $20 and the shipping was about $30.  I had already painted the basement Bungelow Blue by Valspar and when the painting arrived we realized that the color would work wonderfully in here as well (which also gave us an opportunity to repeat that color in our house).  The painting initially hung above Davis’s bed (and will likely do so again when they eventually decide to go back to their own rooms) but once the bunk beds came in there was no great place for it.  We wanted to keep the painting in here both to tie in a loose color and story theme.  The green curtains are from Davis’s toddler room in our old house.  We kept them in here because they work well with the painting, his old bed, and add a great pop of color.

You may also notice that we didn’t take the paint all the way to the ceiling.  I had the idea to do this paint technique but later saw that The Makerista did the same thing in her son’s bedroom!

Before I wrap up here are a few final thoughts:

• Despite my earlier comments about this room being so ‘Ikea’, I LOVE LOVE LOVE the kallax.  The amount of storage it provides is insane.  In the matter of an hour of having it set up we had corralled SO MANY kid items into one tidy, neat little shelf.  It still boggles my mind how it can hold so much.  If you need a solid storage piece I 100% recommend it.
• The art above the shelf is a book page engineer print I made from The Jungle Book.  It says, “And he grew and grew strong as a boy must grow who does not know that he is learning any lessons, and who has nothing in the world to think of except things to eat.”

Thanks for coming on the boys shared bedroom with bunk beds tour today!

Don’t forget to pin!