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This one is for you Christine! Since you live somewhat in the west, how about a cowboy theme? Here is how we did Brady's room. His walls are stone around the bottom half, the top is some old trim we found in a house and stripped, and burned with streaks. It looks like a boy's room! One long wall has logs. Cale built his bed from cherry lumber. Across the top of the bed he put a slab of wood that still has the bark on it as a headboard. Our closets do not have doors, we have curtains hanging on them. I found some blue flanned, with dark blue, light blue, and dark green, (kind of like a flannel shirt) for 89 cents a yard. I bought enough to make curtains. For his window I used a beige sheer panel someone gave me, which I used to make 2 panels. For his bed I found a comforter that is dark blue, with very small white lines in a square pattern, It was $10. His dresser was mine when I was a kid, just plain wood, but heavy duty.

Now to the decorating. Cale mae him a coat rack for his door with horseshoes. We found some pictures of wild turkeys, deer and country scenes. Cale made him a shelf where he puts his horses and cowboy hats. He also has several posters of horses. He also has a big set of shelves for his toys and building blocks. It turned out very nicely and only cost us about $200 total (includingthe tile for the floors, and the mortar for the stones!) I think it will be a nice style for him for years. He was about 5 when we finished it and he is 8 now.

-- Melissa in SE Ohio (me@home.net), March 03, 2002

Answers

That is very cute, im sure. I like the stone look and would of been cute with painted on bricks also. I watched a room get decorated in a southwest motif recently and let me tell you , the stone and brick thing made the room. Congrats on a job well done.

-- Kristean Thompson (pigalena_babe@yahoo.com), March 03, 2002.

Wow, Melissa. I'm not a little boy and I like that boy's room!

-- Ann Markson (tngreenacres@hotmail.com), March 04, 2002.

Oh, I will be so glad to have this over with! I think we are going to have to stall about a month or so because of the new transmission and because we are having problems deciding what to do about the bed situation.

The boys want bunk beds, and the ideal place for them would be to run one north/south INSIDE the closed (just gut the closet and build it in - it's the perfect size) and run the other east/west out of the closet and put a chest next to it. But then we are left having to do even more work to put in a new closet in the space where there is a tiny built in desk. We could move the beds to the other room where the toys are now, it is bigger, but then we have a toy box already built in as a window seat in that room, and the toys would be in the smaller room, with less room to play. AARRRGGGHHH!

Maybe with the extra time to think, we'll come up with a good solution. I did find some bunk beds I liked, but they are so expensive! Lance may end up building them, he and his dad built a loft bed for his sister's 18th birthday to put in her dorm room and it was pretty simple. Plus, it would be about 1/3 the cost of a comparable set which I didn't like the finish on anyway! Of course, the boys found some they liked too, but they were...are you ready?....$1,500 for the set! (to be fair it included underbed storage, a chest and a desk/shelves, but REALLY!)

Anyway, if anyone else has suggestions, I'm taking notes! Mitchell will be six in June, and I would love to have a new bedroom all done for him by then!

-- Christine in OK (cljford@mmcable.com), March 04, 2002.