The Coop {Boy's Bedroom Makeover}

So this is how Cooper's room looked the week we moved in:

Not pretty! Check out that faux chair rail. Apparently the previous owners had some affection for chair rails and painters tape. I guess its fine if you don't mind it looking like your room is chopped in half...or if its 1992. But fortunately or unfortunately, I DO mind and its NOT 1992. So anyway, as I mentioned, we had to do the same thing in Lucia's room and it was a PITA to sand down flat. In this room we had navy blue dust everywhere. I guess when I think about it, its not an extremely labor-intensive job, but you definitely have to make sure to wear a mask and some old clothes. The good ol' handsander did the trick. It took about 30 minutes of sanding time along the top and bottom edge of the stripe, pressing pretty hard with the sander...and when the not-so-lovely blue stripe was finally all sanded down, we added a couple of coats of some Behr Almond Toast on the walls and some Behr gloss white on the woodwork (For some odd reason this was the only room in the house-minus the family room-that didn't have white woodwork)........ and VOILA!

Here is what Coop's new "Coop" looked like after our DIY makeover:

I am pretty happy with how it turned out! I picked up the awesome flatweave rug at IKEA. The bed was a housewarming gift from Mark's mom which we bought at JCP online. It even has a built-in trundle bed, which you obviously can't see from this angle.

I had some curtains just like these in my living room at the duplex and I really wanted to use them in this room but I only had two. They were the Nate Berkus line from Linens N Things, which apparently doesn't exist anymore, so I had to re-create them myself. I bought these plain brown panels from Target Boutique and added the ribbon detail on the top and bottom using iron on tape. Nifty, huh?

The Expedit shelf, which I LOVE, is IKEA also and comes in three different colors. We got the white one for the playroom also because I loved it so much in here. The baskets, which were only $5 each, were from Big LOTS of all places! The armoire we got at TJMaxx when we bought Cooper's crib for his nursery. It was a set and we only bought two pieces. I'm not really a fan of "sets" and had originally planned to paint this piece, but at the moment, I don't mind it in this wood tone. The Bamboo roman shades are from Home Depot. I hung them all as close together as possible for a seemless look. You could achieve the same by ordering custom sizes to go all the way across each set of windows but that would be much harder on the pocketbook then my bargain find!

I ordered the vintage train prints on this wall and above Cooper's bed on Fulcrum Gallery for under $10 and just framed them in frames from Target. The awesome train shelf above the bed is from Pottery Barn Kids. (I had a gift certificate!) and the Railroad Crossing Sign and vintage WI license plate were found online also.

So, that's the lowdown on Cooper's room. Its been done since February and I am just now finishing this post....and just as I was finishing up, I went upstairs to discover my two little bugs in bed reading together:

I posted this photo of the peanuts on facebook and a high school acquaintance told me the room looked like it was straight out of Pottery Barn! THANKS, Paul! What a compliment. Pottery Barn taste on a garage sale budget. I guess it works?