Renovating a Teen Boy's Bedroom, Groovy Style (part one)

My oldest son Grant will be seventeen at the end of this month. Minimally, this kid would have been fine with a cot and a laundry basket and a pile of Sports Illustrated magazines, because he is a guy's guy, and really isn't fussed about this sort of thing. At the other end of the spectrum, if his mom was going to "decorate" his room, he certainly didn't want anything embarrassing.

We settled on school colors black and orange, but nothing overtly mascot or varsity looking, since he only has one year of high school (gulp!) left after this. I added gray and cream to keep it from getting too harsh, but still keep it masculine. I was shooting for a 1960s mod look after a loud orange lamp I found on Etsy.

Instead of "befores" we had lots of "almosts" over these last months didn't we? Let's take a look:

We had the "before" on his dresser:

This shade of pink does not exist in nature. And that's a good thing.

And the half done painting on the walls:

Are we done ye......oh, crap.

At first I didn't want to post photos until I was FINISHED finished. You know, everything done. But I realize that doesn't happen quickly, and I didn't think my blog readers would stick around for another year while I got my inner perfectionist satisfied. I decided I needed to share my SO FAR in stead of my FINISHED.

And then there's been the weather. The sun's been gone, here for half an hour, hiding for an afternoon, back out again, and then gone for days at a time. It's been aggravating trying to get good photos instead of grainy, dark, underexposed stuff.

But now we're ready to rock. Here we go:

Let's play find the photographer in this photo...

A great deal of Grant's room was put together on a dime rather than a dollar. We already had the double bed. The mod-style black/gray/white comforter set was an online WalMart find. I know! It's shocking but true.

The 1960s oak parquet headboard was purchased for $100 at a consignment shop.

The poster over the bed is a beach near the San Francisco Bay Bridge that Grant has actually been to on a trip with his grandparents. That was a few bucks on Ebay. The nightstand was free, but I'll write more about it in part two. The woven wood blinds are from Lowe's, and match the oak of the headboard nicely. I toyed with the idea of painting the headboard black, but I decided it would wreck the inlay design, and I also think the natural wood notes "warm" the room up a bit, making it a little less cold and matchy-matchy.

This is the chest of drawers. As I wrote in a previous blog post, this is not a high quality piece of furniture, but see what paint and new hardware did:

It was in the house when I moved in, hiding in a damp corner of the basement.  Despite its somewhat rickety construction, I love, love, love, the horizontal lines on this piece. More on the details of this photo in part two to come.

Like the lamp? So do I.  It was an Etsy find:

It's got a gravelly stone-like surface, and the bold color jumped out at me. I thought it might have been painted, but investigating the base, it looks like the original color. Yowza! The black shade is from Target, spray-painted black. Luckily we are beginning to see new shades in shapes that work well with old lamps.

And here's a detail of the KoldAir fan and vintage compass:

The fan still works, but we love our fingers more than that.

I bought the fan at an antique store ages ago and I've hauled it around from house to house because I love the Art Deco lines on the grille. It seems to have found a place in the new (old) home.

We also have the orange carpet. Shagadelic!

So far we've lost $1.38 in change, a sock, and one of the eight-year-olds in there.

I'll admit I did quite a bit of color correction to that photo just to make it look closer to reality. This rug kept bouncing back light at my camera so funky that every shot looked washed out and overexposed. This color orange was literally too groovy to be captured on film!

Stay tuned! I'll be back on Friday with part two!