Fun And Flamboyant Orange Radiates Warmth And Energy - (Color Theme For My Boy's Room)

Atlast I got his room done. I had promised my son that I would paint his room before his birthday. There you go I am way ahead. The tough part was to convince him (and convince myself) to refresh his (my) mind from his (my) very own vision of how he (I) wanted his room to be.
When we moved into the house, the first thing he said was mommy "I already have chosen which room I want for myself". Little did I know he would take me to the "Master Bedroom" and said "This is going to be my new room". I asked him why would he want to take the biggest room? Isn't that too big for just one person? I had to talk him out of it and he agreed only if I would promise that I will be sharing "The Master Bedroom" with his dad and not have the whole room for just myself. For some reason he thought we each (3 of us) would get our very own room and that mommy would take the biggest of all (Not a bad idea!).

So he picked out next biggest room that was available. I casually told him to "start thinking" about how he would want to decorate his room and blurt came the answer I want "Space Theme" and "Dinosaurs". Typical of boys that age I may guess. So I kind of knew what he would want but I did not expect that he had already been planning it. His answer to my question did not end there. He said - "I want my room in Orange Color (Wall and Ceiling), I want a bunk bed and I want the bed to be right in the middle of the room like an island!". Then he showed me where he wants his toys. There was no mention of school books or any desk. When I asked him about that he said - hmmm lets keep them in one of the shelves in the kitchen. Reason for that - Since he is going to need help for his homework most of the time, it will be easy for me to help him if its in the kitchen. Well thought! but I wasn't ready to share my kitchen at that time, now its a different story - I finally gave a cabinet for him in my kitchen.

Boy oh Boy! none of his idea resonate with me. I did not want to say "No", so I said - Lets think more about it and plan. Whenever we spoke/discussed we never were  able to reconcile. Finally I had to say "No to Orange color" and "No for Bunk bed" and " A definite No for keeping the bed in the center of the room".

My reasons for saying
"No" to bunk bed" - because he doesn't want to sleep on the higher one, I did not see a point in a bunk bed then (maybe later when he is ready for that I would trade his current bed for a bunk bed for sure).
"No for keeping the bed in the center of the room" - Come on need I care to give a reason!
"No to Orange color" - Well this is where the debating actually started. I knew Orange is my son's favorite color so I thought I would try to bring in some orange in the form of bedding, accessories etc. But he kept saying he wanted Orange on the walls. I did not want to enter a room that looked like furnace for sure. But for Seattle's weather I bet Orange is actually not a bad one to see on the wall. So the debate was actually in my mind rather than with my 6 year old.

I started to ransack the internet to find one inspiring pic that would make me say an affirmative "Yes" or even "Ok" for the "Orange" color. I couldn't wrap my head around this. One funny thing that happened in the mean time though is - One day G came to me and said - "Fine if you don't want to paint the walls Orange, Can you at least paint the closet Orange?!"...Poor guy, It appeared like he finally just want to get this over with and was haggling with me to at least get it done :)

After the scavenge hunt I eventually found one to which we were 100% onboard. Here is the inspiration pic.

Here is the final outcome of our attempt -

Even though the brain behind this is me the effort is a collaborative one that includes my husband and my little one (with clean up) - Thanks Sweetypie.

Few things that are noteworthy here are -
I bought some furniture legs from IKEA and used those to make this vertical self lay horizontal. The shelf is a typical IKEA one that I had in my apartment as a showcase near my TV cabinet. I asked my husband to remove the doors (Dear door please don't feel separated, I will upcycle you later).

Those black geometric pattern thing is from one of my favorite online shopping store Overstock.com. They are actually sofa chair's seat cushions for outdoor furniture. I bought those as seating for my bay window. They did not fit so I had been using it as floor cushions in my prayer room. After I put my son's room together it just occured to me why don't I just stuck it in as headboard since his platform bed did not have headboard anyway.

I bought some shelf brackets (Amazon.com) and used them to hold his skating board. The skating board was gifted by one of our friends on his 4th birthday and I really don't think he will be ready for it until he is 8. So while we still hold on to it in the garage, I just thought I would use it as display shelf until then.

The unique car shaped lamp is from my another favorite online shopping store Wayfair.com. There were very few options for kids (Boy's) room . But the ones that I loved were a little expensive ranging from 210$ to 270$. I had a price watch on those for a long time and I found that one of the lamps had a huge price slash (just in time while I was planning to paint his room). I bought those using one of the gift cards that a friend of ours gave us as house warming gift (Thanks Swati and Saurabh).

The space theme stickers I bought from Sherwin William's paint store while I was shopping for paints. They were on sale for 10$. I had those on his walls when we moved in and since they are peel and stick it was easy for me to reuse those after I finished painting. Between, Venus is my son's favorite planet!. Thanks to Chitra Aunty who suggested that I should do some art on that black patch through out. I am not artist so I decided to go with these stickers.

The white shelf where the casio is resting is a spice rack that I bought from IKEA.

The panel curtains are from IKEA. Shamefully it took 2 hours for me and my husband to hang this.

The monogram is my self creation of my son's initial 'G'. I used nail/thumb tacks to create this.

I bought those orange metal baskets from dollar store for storage purpose.

My reward - After the paint was all coming through while I was doing some clean up, my son came running to me and gave me a loving hug and said - I Love it so much mommy, thanks for listening to me! LOL.