Room makeover series

The Martin family live in a 19th-century villa in Auckland’s Grey Lynn and their youngest son, Fred, 8, is the winner of our third and final room makeover using Adairs products and Resene paint. Fred’s room, the largest of the boys’ bedrooms, is situated at the front of the house and contains two beds: a queen and a single.

The north-facing room gets lots of light, especially through a large front window. The stunning high ceiling is white-painted pressed tin, the walls were light beige and the carpet pale mocha. The room was very tired, having been left untouched for a long time, and the furniture was a mish-mash of styles and colours.

The plan

Amanda was keen for Fred’s room to have a more cohesive look and be equipped with functional, age-appropriate furniture. She wanted the room to grow with Fred and last him for at least five years. Amanda preferred to keep most of the walls neutral in tone but was happy to introduce a dash of colour as long as it wasn’t too “kiddy”.

The single bed is used for sleepovers or as a spare bed for Fred if he has to give up his queen-sized one when visitors come to stay. With two large pieces of furniture to contend with, it was important that the room did not feel too busy. To combat this, Your Home and Garden stylist Vanessa Nouwens selected a plain grey, T-shirt-style duvet cover for the queen and a geometric pattern with pops of colour for the single bed. These were mixed with patterned pillowcases, cushions and a throw in toning colours to tie it all together.

As the smaller bed is not in frequent use, Vanessa decided to turn it into a daybed with cushions running along the wall so that Fred can treat it like a sofa – a good spot to read or play on. A stacked pillow feature on the queen bed creates a mock headboard.

A modern bedside cabinet and bookshelf were added, along with an on-trend anglepoise-style bedside light; these were all selected to complement the contemporary look of the room and the graphic bedlinen.

Round felt rugs break up the sea of mocha carpet and are also a good way to bring the colours used in the room down to floor level. Cross hooks were added to the feature wall to get Fred’s school bag off the floor, and a shelf installed above his bed so he can display all his favourite decorative objects.

Fred had stuck his certificates and awards all over the walls and Amanda was keen to come up with a solution for keeping them in one place. Vanessa’s answer was a handy corkboard.

Colours used

Blue is a favourite colour of Fred’s so Vanessa decided that, while the rest of the room would remain neutral with the walls painted in Resene SpaceCote Low Sheen Stack (a browny grey), the wall behind Fred’s white desk would be painted in Resene Blue Night, a deliciously dark navy. Navy is a classic colour that will never go out of fashion, and Vanessa knew that a large, light-filled room like this could easily take a dark wall without it feeling overpowering. This feature wall is also the first you see on entering the room, giving this boy zone some immediate wow-factor.

Just above the cupboard door in this wall we painted stripes in Resene Stack and Resene Half Resolution Blue.

Fred’s chest of drawers was a good functional piece of furniture that needed to stay in the room. The simple solution was to give it a makeover so that it fitted in with the rest of the scheme. The colours for the drawers were picked to coordinate with those in the geometric duvet cover. The top and sides were painted in Resene Blue Night with the drawers in (from top) Resene Stack, French Pass, Blue Night, Half Resolution Blue and Refresh.

To keep clutter at bay, Vanessa took a cheap corkboard and painted it in a geometric pattern to tie in with the duvet cover; she used Resene Blue Night, Half Resolution Blue and French Pass.

Kid's Bedroom Decorating Ideas
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