Oliver and Evans Room

I started re-doing this room in 2016 and to be honest it still isn't completed. It was originally the master room. Tim chose this room as his when he moved in the house in 2008. He loved the large 16' x 17' bedroom that has 5 large windows. He loves that it gets morning sun, when the windows are open it gets the best breeze and it over looks the side/back yard and fields as far as the eye can see, or at least until you see the edge of the woods. It really would be the perfect master room.

First let me paint you a picture of what was, when Tim and I lived in the room. We were surrounded by  4 dresser drawers (the two I brought into the marriage matched, his did not), our bed, and a few stacks of totes (that would normally be hidden at the bottom of my closet), two end tables, and pieces of drywall that we were trying to save to redo the downstairs bathroom, tools and anything else you could imagine it was probably in our, less than romantic, bedroom. I felt as if I was living in a storage unit, I could never find my clothes, I never looked forward to going to bed not to mention I didn't feel relaxed in this room. I would get the worst anxiety just thinking about my room.

A perfect depiction of the room I used to live in... it was literally a storage unit for a master room.
This was even after we started working on the room, it never had trim at the top or bottom of the walls
and the rosettes at the top of the windows were missing and Tim had to make some. 

SO, the reason we didn't keep this room was the lack of closet. Sure, there are two walls that would make a great spot for a closet, one could have housed a walk in closet, the other a normal bi-fold  door type closet. BUT I could not live in this room one day longer due to the lack of closet. Sure my handy husband could have build a closet of my choice, but he is also in the fields from February until October, most the time seven days a week and between 8-14 hour days. With the husbands limited time to build a closet, my impatience to wait one day longer for organization, nor was I paying someone to build something my husband could do for the cost of supplies, I made the decision to switch rooms with Oliver and Evan. 

That was February 2016. I started brain storming Oliver and Evan's bedroom theme, colors and obviously a storage/closet that my husband didn't need to build that was also extremely budget friendly (maybe even free). 

I decided on the hunting theme first, because lets face it I need somewhere to put the deer heads and stuffed ducks that Tim thinks he has to keep collecting (insert eye rolling). Not to mention my brother (Oliver's God Father) actually solidified the theme when he gave Oliver a pallet sign that was hunting theme with Oliver's name on it. At first I did not have a clue as to what I was going to do with it but after some brain storming and measuring I soon realized it would make the most perfect headboard for a twin bed.

I talked this over with Tim and he said it could be done. He welded some angle iron together and viola.. a head board was born. BUT this also meant I was going to have to make a headboard for Evans bed once he was out of the baby bed, which only happened a few, 8 months, later. He was crawling out of his bed at 10 months.

Oliver's was made by a high school friend that I actually took art class with.
I figured that this was simple enough to recreate, so I did, with Evan's below. 

Now that the hunting theme was officially decided choosing the colors came easy. I was always thinking Navy and Gray because they are good neutrals for boys and any color can really be thrown in with it. I decided the pop of color would be orange because hunting and orange just go together. I even created this Pinterest board for inspiration. I got to painting the walls Chance of Rain gray, the trim the Chalk white.

I found navy and white curtains at WalMart that fit the rooms theme and my budget, considering I am covering 5 windows. I was finally to a point where I needed to start considering my closet options. The only thing I knew was that I had to keep it cheap. 

After much research I decided on an open closet concept made from large book shelves. I discussed  my idea with my co-worker, took to pinterest for ideas and talked it over with my very doubting husband. Side note: when I share my ideas with Tim he usually doubts me until the project is completed than he realizes my idea was a good one. Once I pitched my idea to him and he didn't turn it down I was set out to find large yet sturdy book shelves. I took to swap and sells, Ikea, Walmart and found them where I least expected it. My co-worker is always supportive in my nutso projects and we shared possible execution ideas. A few days after sharing my open closet concept idea with her she approached me telling me her husband had large wooden bookshelves, originally made for  a law office and taken over by my co-workers, husbands engineering company. She said they were going to trash them since they were selling the business and if I wanted two of them I could come take my pick of the many they had. I talked Tim into going to look at them and as soon as I saw them I knew they were perfect for the project so we loaded them on the trailer and brought them home that evening.

Sorry, this is the only before I have.

They were sturdy, 8' tall, 3' wide, solid wood and perfect. The bonus... they were super (free) cheap. On the way home we stopped at Home Depot and purchased 4 closet rods, small screws and hooks.

I prepped the shelves by cleaning them with soap and water and letting them completely dry. I wanted these dark cherry shelves to fit into the natural wood hunting theme of the room, and although I said they were perfect that had their share of scratches and blemishes so I decided to paint them the same color as the walls, Chance of Rain. Yes, I used the same paint as I did on the walls and let me tell you, four years later they are still going strong.

Once the shelves were painted and dried we installed the closet bars and I might suggest using small screws than provided in the kit. We attempted at first with the screws that were provided and it blistered the outside of the unit so we had to switch to smaller ones. We hung two bars in each unit, put one shelf at the top of each unit, big enough to fit a storage cube and one at the bottom of each of the units that also fits the storage cubes. One mistake made was we measured the rods to fit in the units with baby hangers, not considering that once the boys clothes get to big for the little hangers we will then have to move the rods to accommodate the large hangers. But lesson learned. We hung two hooks on each end of the units so the boys had somewhere to hang their bags or costumes. The unit is also mounted to the wall with two metal "L" brackets each.

We hang the clothes by long sleeves on top and short sleeves on bottom than separate them by the rainbow. Each of the boys have their won unit so they (or Tim) don't get confused on which clothes are theirs. Please excuse the unit to the left, we fit it for baby hangers and now the kid is wearing cloths that need big hangers so we will have to move them, someday.

Later I had the idea to take the spare shelves that belong to the units, and buy shelf brackets and hang them between the two units for books, toy storage and for one of my husbands dead ducks. We are still battling toy storage but I did find on a swap and sell natural wood toy box and shelf unit which matches the dresser Tim donated to the boys, his old, very large dresser. A toy storage life saver has defiantly been the bean bags at the end of the boys bed. They are filled with ALLLL the stuffed animals owned by all three of the boys.

All the bedding is from Target except the raccoon pillow is from Hobby Lobby.

One of the toy storage battles was Lego's. My oldest had an over abundance of them, my brothers donated theirs from our childhood to my boys and we literally had no where to go with them all (still don't). So, for Christmas one year Tim made Carter (my oldest) a Lego table. He has since grown out of Lego's and willed the table and all of it parts to his little brothers. They play with this table daily.  you Would think since we have a designated area for them we wouldn't be finding pieces in our room, the bathroom or the kitchen, WRONG!

The drawers are full of Lego's as are the totes underneath AND that Lego head.

We are always adding little things to this room, toy storage comes and goes, and I have yet to get the boys to part with the ugly town rug so I can replace it with something that matches. They use it when they play Lego's or Matchbox cars so as much as I hate this rug they love it so it will stay until they no longer play on it.

This actually a Pottery Barn rug from I believe 2008 (maybe older).

This room is a forever changing process and I have come to terms with that. Maybe one day it will get a closet, maybe then Tim and I will move back into the room. For now it is perfect for these two and thankfully they haven't had the shared room argument just yet. Check back for more projects.