Neat Nursery becomes Big Boy Brilliant

When we were designing Aden's nursery in 2004, I became obsessed with the idea of a vintage circus room. (minus the scary clowns) A year after Collin was born, (2008) Ellen finally made it happen.

There was a crib in the room as well as the twin bed & I made that large frame into a mirror.

Ellen did the mural & the dresser. She is so talented, & so affordable ;)


Now cut to 2 years later, we have no babies! Aden started 1st grade this year & Collin is almost diaper free, so a big boy room was in store. The 2nd week of summer vacation I started in & here are the results, all for $100 & my sweat equity.

A sensible reading station. We had the magazine racks (Ikea), the frames (Kmart), & of course the artwork. (Parker & Kaleb)

Most of the $100 was bedding. I found everything at Target, Ikea, & Fred Meyer. The bunk beds were given to us & I kept the dresser the same.

I found shelving & artwork we already had. I bought a $5 poster at Ikea & paired it with giant green clothespins from Michael's. It can be swapped out for something more personal to the boys. One big change I made was weeding out all the toys to this one bin & the big toy box downstairs. Freedom from stuff!

The circle cubbies are something we had as well. (Ikea)


The wall color is Berber Carpet by Dutch Boy. I liked the light neutral color because kids stuff has such bright colors. I will probably get a rug & something for the windows to finish it off. I had to share the progress though. In typical male fashion, the boys could care less.