Teen Bedroom $300.00 Makeover Challenge - Today's Creative Blog

A dear friend I worked with years ago turned creative blog high priestess asked for a favor and presented me with a challenge.  Could I take over her $300.00 gift card budget for a sponsored room makeover and transform her son's room?  And in 72 hours?

Tattered and loopy from a 14 day commercial project that whacked out my body clock with graveyards, swing shifts and too many hours in traffic, I must have been in YES man mode.  Why YES Kim, I'd love too.  Why YES, I'll scour your sponsor Lowe's store for ways to spend the moolah, create unique items and install in 72 hours.  YES, YES, YES.....

Kim's son Lucas' room was trapped in transition.  The explorer theme had yet to evolve to match his young teen soccer loving bravado.

All kidding aside, my friend Kim Demmon and I have reacquainted via our social media endeavors with hers being top notch and mine part of my jack of all trades learning curve.  Her love and labor Today's Creative Blog features an array of talented bloggers, creatives and puts the artistically challenged in touch with tools and technology to make their creative whims easier, better and smarter.

Our project at hand was to transform her son's room utilizing her blog sponsor Lowes $300.00 budget as part of a blogosphere challenge.  Top on Kim and her son's list were a desk, some storage and a fresh teen attitude.  He had existing bedding from Target and lot's of sports memorabilia, but that was about it.  Pretty much bare bones.  Part of her reluctance to further his room was the disconnect between the bedding and the wall color.  She felt they didn't work together.  I resolved the issue with an unexpected solution.  Can you spot the change in either the bedding or the wall color from the before and after picture?  It's a subtle change that made all the difference in the world.

The bedding was too vibrant, the colors on the verge of fluorescent.  The stark difference between the brilliant white, hunting vest orange and other colors fought with the neutral wall color.  My solution was to treat the bedding in a custom blend of Rit Dyes.  Adding an antiqued over-dye to the bedding enriched the colors, changed the white to cream and toned down the kid-like color palette, making it more mature for a teen.

Sticking to the $300.00 budget I devised a way to cut up and assemble hollow core bi-fold doors into a desk, a headboard, shelving and create a casing around one of those clever ClosetMaid storage cubbies.  Would you believe all of those items cost under $90.00?  The remainder of the budget was spend on paint, sundries, lighting and materials for the custom bulletin board and hexagon shelving, I designed for Lucas.

I had Kim and her husband paint the wall stripe, his existing dresser and name cut-out with a spicy orange.  

Given the room's size of 9.5 feet by 11 feet, the dimensions for the desk and cubby worked out great.  Just enough room for his laptop and effective storage.  I crafted the hexagon shelves out of a new pre-cut lumber Lowe's has, it's a super high quality plywood trim with a birch veneer.  I left the edges unpainted to showcase the pattern of the laminated ply.

I took creative liberty to work in one of soccer pieces from my line of children's art.  The Soccer 100 Yards piece is available nationwide through retailers the stock Oopsy Daisy Fine art or online via my website or online retailers.

I enjoyed designing and creating the memo board.  As a matter of fact, I'll provide a D.I.Y on how to make your own turf board in a future post.  I had Kim, with her technological craftiness cut out a vinyl #14 (her son's player number) with her Silhouette Cameo cutting system.  It was a great way to personalize the desk chair.

All in all, I think for $300.00 and within 72 hours we gave Lucas exactly what he needed- a teen room with attitude, a desk and much needed storage.  If you'd like to dive into the details closer, here's a outline for you.

If this makeover's inspiration isn't enough to talk you into making over your child's room, relax I can help.  That's what I do, I create children's rooms.  Visit my site for details and give me a call for a free in-home estimate or to discuss e-consult recommendation.