Monday, March 28, 2011

DECORATING PETER'S ROOM

I love to decorate, and in 20 years, Peter's room started out as our guest room with either white or pink walls (I can't remember exactly) with the Laura Ashley comforter and curtains from my single days. I made other accessories with extra sheets and fabric, and set up a "teddy bear tea party" in front of the french doors with a little set of white wicker furniture, teddy bears and even a little silver tea service.

Then we found out that we were having a boy, so I painted the room light blue, and had a teddy bear theme going with blue rug and pictures of teddy bears and blocks and rocking horses. My mom bought Peter a beautiful wooden sleigh bed crib, and I brought in other accents with darker wood.

Peter got a little older, and we needed furniture, so I bought a queen sleigh bed, large dresser chest and smaller hand painted dresser. I found a sailing motif duvet and shams at the Company Store in Wisconsin, had some checkerboard pattern sheer curtains on the windows and a small checkerboard rug in front of the french doors, and in the summer a Ralph Lauren checkerboard coverlet. The small lamps were shades of blue, and somehow it sort of came together around all the blue. I put up some white shelves above the white covered radiator, and these shelved family pictures, treasures and gameboy games. At some point, early on, I bought this dolphin painting which needed to go as soon as I bought the sailing duvet, but instead it's been above the bed until yesterday!

Then I thought Peter needed a desk, so I bought an off white one and matching chair from Crate and Barrel, and got rid of the not fancy bookshelf we were usin
g and bought a lovely bookshelf that matched his bed. We also needed somewhere to put his growing collection of games, so I found a perfectly sized tall narrow bookshelf at office depot that would do the job and be hidden behind the bathroom door. At some point I took down the pleated shades and put up two inch white wooden blinds in all the upstairs bedrooms and bathrooms. Peter's bathroom is the original 1920s with green tile and white fixtures. It's a large bathroom, and I could never find the right combination of throw rugs (besides the right green) so a couple of years ago, I bought a piece of wool berber and had it cut and bound to fit so that the green floor would show around the edges, but half your feet wouldn't be on the tile when washing up on cold mornings.

For a few years now, I've wanted to make Peter's room into a decorated teen room. Peter, for all that he's like me, lives in the here and now (as does Steve). Unlike Steve, Peter is a minimalist, and he'd get rid of most of his stuff in a heartbeat. Doesn't care about the furniture, doesn't care about most of the books, doesn't care about the games he no longer plays, doesn't care about the pictures, doesn't care about a theme. HOWEVER, we are doing this.

My idea was to get away from the blue and paint the walls a khaki/medium brown color, leave some of the blue accents, white trim and dark wood furniture. Keep the hand painted dresser, but maybe move it. Last summer I bought a gorgeous piece of carpet, another wool berber, Ralph Lauren, with a pattern of some sort in it. It's a light oatmeal color, and it's cut to fit so that there is a small border of floor around the room, but mostly it will be carpeted. I've wanted to move his bed to place it at an angle in the far corner for ages, but I can't think of a way that he could have a nightstand if I did that. I wish his bed was double instead of queen size, then it would center better on its wall. But it's a queen size and I don't have another spot for it.

All this time, the new carpet has been in it's roll in the hallway outside of Peter's room. It partially blocks both of our bedroom doorways, and it's spring break, and Peter could help me, so it's time to get going on this project.

Yesterday Peter and I emptied his room of the lighter furniture, cleared the surfaces, and took down all that was on the walls. What a beautiful room! I showed Peter the wall color chips to see which brown/khaki color he liked. And guess what!? He doesn't like those colors. Those are "boring grandmother old lady colors". He wants blue. He'll go for a darker blue, and I actually got him to look at a few inspiration rooms. This of course is a complete turnabout for me.....I want the brown. But it's not my room. So what I'll do is paint some version of the brown on a wall, and then a darker blue on another wall. If he wants the blue, then blue it will be. If he will go for the brown, then yea! The brown will make for a more peaceful room, the blue a more dramatic room.

The theme will be running. Peter likes the idea of a bean bag chair to flop in. I like the idea of a tv in the room. He's had one since he was little, and has never ever watched it. Now that he has a big tv in his game cave in the basement, that's where he watches movies. One of the inspiration rooms had the TV on the wall over the bed, and I'm thinking that might work, but he'd have to lean back on his footboard to watch. Maybe hang the tv over the bookcase? I think I'm going to swap out the Expedit bookcase from my room, and put it in Peter's room because the scale is better on the wall next to the radiator. There won't be that awkward space. The beanbag chair will go next to the radiator. I have a couple of ideas for that wall, but nothing has gelled yet. Sometimes it's nice to have a plain wall.

Here's what's staying:
The Queensize Sleighbed
The Dresser Chest
The 2" White Wooden Blinds
The Chandelier
The New Carpet

Everything else is fair game to not come back into the room. I wish I'd shown the true "before" pictures. The room was really cluttered, although it's such a large room that I didn't realize it. I want to give Peter a room where he'll feel great and sleep well, and want to spend time. I think he likes the sailing theme, but I'm not sure how to incorporate that with the running theme. Maybe it's a sailing room that happens to be occupied by a runner? I want to display his running awards, too, so I have to figure out something creative there.

In the meantime, I'll do some blog posts with inspiration rooms and other ideas, and make a graph of the room and furniture. There might be a way to rearrange the furniture that's really different and that Peter will love. Hmmm...How I love to rearrange furniture!




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