Apartment Progress: Julian's Room

When we moved, I was really excited to try something new with Julian's room. The colors in his room at our previous place were the same as when we lived with my dad, and I get sick of seeing the same stuff for a long time. Plus, I figured that I would want to do something different when he gets out of his crib, so I might as well start it now.

It's definitely a work in progress and I plan on making changes along the way. I'm excited to see what this room evolves into as he grows, since we plan on staying here for a long time.

This is the wall that his crib is on. The color is Valspar Luscious Green, and the letters and crib were both in his room before. I love the way the white pops against the green.

This wall is the biggest work in progress, and it's looking sort of sad right now. I hope to expand it into a gallery wall of pictures and things that take up the entire wall. I want to fill it with a mixture of pictures, drawings, illustrations and prints, and also 3D objects. The door on this wall goes to his closet, and the paint color for the rest of his room is Valspar Possabilities.

Here is a close-up of what I have so far.

I spent some time yesterday creating this fox painting out of construction paper and acrylic paint. I'm really proud of the way it turned out! I plan on framing it in a big frame that I have on hand. I want to spray paint it gold, so now it's just a matter of getting that done. I think it will end up being the focal point of the whole wall, even when the whole wall is filled.

I happen to have a really old Aesop's Fables book that has some amazing illustrations to go along with the stories. Many of them happen to feature a fox, which is sort of the underlying theme for the room so far. I really loved this one (and it wasn't as greusome as some of the others) so I framed it! You gotta love free artwork!

 This was another free artwork solution that will probably be temporary. The designer in me saw "Pantone" and almost screamed. (I even posted about it on Instagram.) I like the idea of the paint swatches, but it takes up a large part of the wall right now and it's not my favorite. I might keep two swatches and put them in a smaller frame or make something more creative out of them. I'll keep you posted!

Julian's crib is oppose from his changing table and the gallery wall and closet door are opposite from this bookshelf and the door leading to the hallway. These paintings used to hang in our bedroom, but I would like to change the colors in there too, and they happened to work perfectly in here! They're probably temporary, too, but they make the walls more colorful. When I have the extra time and money, I would love to hang some book/picture ledges from the floor to the ceiling so that all of his books can be on display. He has so many and some of them were even mine and my sister's when we were little, so being able to see them would be so cool! Plus it would be easier to put them all away on a ledge than sliding them into the shelf.

Here are some more pictures of the room so you can get an idea of how it all comes together.

I love having his little table in there for us to play on, read on, and of course hve snacks on.

This is the view from the rocking chair next to his bed. He rarely lets me sit in it peacefully, but I love being a fly on the wall and watching him do his little boy thing.

His closet is huge and so functional. I put his clothes dresser in there, hung up some things and then put blankets and unused things on the shelves. Not the prettiest placem, but it is really handy to have such an organized spot for clothes and extras.

And, of course the obligatory "real life" shot of what the room looks like on a good day. This picture was taken 6 minutes after the ones above, when I finally let him take toys and books out.

So that's his room! I haven't really thought of the "theme" that would describe it yet because it's definitely still evolving. Eventually I would like to say that it has a storybook adventure feel to it, complete with lots of books and forest animals.

My original vision for his room involved green, black, grey and white, but when our upstairs got carpeted they put in this blue carpet and it really threw me off, and I was dissapointed at first. I wanted it to be sophisticated and modern. But once I got over it, I realized that it's going to work out really well in the end. The blue looks great with the green and white walls! This way the room will stay "little boy-ish", whereas I think it could have felt too grown up had I gone with my original plan.

One of the things I love most about the room is that I'm using things that I already had, which makes the cost of recreating his bedroom super low. With some new paint colors you can transform the look and feel of a space into whatever you want! I also love that all the artwork has been free, besides what I initially paid for supplies. It's so fun to use what you have to make something completely new.

Also, I want to take this opportunity to say how much I love 3M hanging strips. I think I've hung everything in this room withone of those things, and they work like a dream for the most part. The walls in our place are painted paneling so they it can be hard to drive nails into the wall, and plus since we're renting I would rather keep the walls as clean as possible.

Thanks for stopping by to see Julian's room! I hope to post more pictures of it as it evolves and progresses. I don't think it will ever be "finished", because I'm never satisfied!

I hope to be back tomorrow to show you some of the things I've been working on design-wise!