Bedroom for Me Boy

We are back from our detour to New York today to continue on the bedroom decorating journey here in Ohio. We are taking a look at my son's bedroom today. A short and sweet post, just like him, for him. Although, he's really not so short now and growing like a weed. He is entering middle school this year and I fear I will not be able to call him "my little guy" much longer, debatable if I should be doing it now actually. He only needs a few more inches to surpass me. I digress.

The bedroom was referred to as Bedroom Three in this tour post and this renovation post. My son has had a navy and orange color scheme for his entire life. The main reason behind that is this poster:

In our Grosse Pointe house, his walls were painted orange:

It's funny. You don't see the Bugatti poster in either of these pictures. It is across from the foot of the bed. You can see the "shoe basket" from the mudroom post though! For my son's room in this house, we are keeping the Bugatti poster and saying goodbye to the orange walls. The bed and chest he has used his entire life are moving to the guest bedroom next door. So, these are the existing pieces of furniture we have to work with for his new bedroom:

We have an antique iron (almost) double bed that has been modified to accommodate a full size mattress. We have an antique table, an antique pine chest and an old wicker chair. The only piece that has been in my son's room before is the wicker - used to be story reading - chair.

Here is the inspiration board for the room! Note, the color for the poster is not exactly right.

I am also taking major inspiration from this picture that I ripped out of House Beautiful magazine fairly recently:

This is the plan:

I love the grey blue color on the mood board. It is Farrow and Ball De Nimes. It is almost an exact match to the gray blue on the bottom half of the train in the poster. I would be open to painting the walls in the room this color, the room faces north though so it fairly dark throughout the day and it may prove to be too much. I asked my son about it last night at dinner and he said "let's paint it black". I said "go for it, I've always wanted to paint a room black, I love that." John said "absolutely not". So, there you have it - dinner with the Moylans.

I also love Farrow and Ball House White. It compliments the yellow on the train in the poster well. It is described as a "citrus white" by Farrow and Ball. Here is a picture of it in a room from their website:

I am inspired to paint the walls House White and the trim De Nimes. The best of both worlds! There would also be the option of painting the walls De Nimes and the trim white. Unlikely though.

John is concerned that the antique iron bed is too ornate for a middle school boy and I disagree (shocker!). The iron is very dark and if I concentrate on the "darkness" factor and select linens that "simplify" the room I think it will be amazing.

Some images with dark iron beds from my inspiration binders that (to me) prove my point lol:

And this one from Amber Interiors that is on the mood board:

This may surprise you, with chambray accents thrown in (similar to the duvet cover above), I want to keep the linens in the navy and white family, similar to this look:

I also would love to have a Kilim or Dhurrie blue and white striped rug, similar to this one on Etsy:

I also want drapes with a blue and white pattern around the window and a wood blind on the window as well. I don't want to overdo stripes, although I love a good ticking stripe and would never rule it out. I am inspired to do a pattern though, something like this from Etsy. This is a sample for now until we decide if the walls or trim will be gray blue and what the other fabrics in the room will be. I will have to pick the actual fabric from there:

The last thing to take a look at is the placement of the furniture. I prefer to see the head of the bed when you walk into a bedroom and that is how my son's room is set up now with the single bed. This arrangement is not possible in the guest room or master bedroom of this house and may not be possible in my son's room either with the larger bed. I have measured everything out and the furniture could fit with this scenario. Of course I would want the bed to be centered on its wall and the chest to be centered on its wall so the space between the chest and the bed would be a little tight - two feet between the two which makes it hard to pull the drawers all of the way out and still be standing there.

This would be the other layout option, with the bed facing toward the window:

This option has the bed centered on the window and definitely allows for more space to work with/walk around in as the inhabitant of the room. Perhaps I am more drawn to option one because that is what I am used to right now. The form over function battle begins. I think practicality will win out on this one though. I could potentially use a smaller bedside table and not have the bed entirely centered on the wall to push option one forward. I do want to use the antique pine table though because it could double as a desk in the room as needed. More battles....

All in all though I am super excited about the prospects for this bedroom. I think it will be a great room for a middle schooler to have all the way through high school and beyond. Black walls or not ;-)

In the next post we will be decorating my younger daughter's bedroom. I hope to see you there!

Thank you for visiting today,

Kerry