A Makeover for Baylor!

Inspiration for designing a big boy's room.

​Whenever we get the chance to makeover a room for a child or teen, we always get a little extra excited. Not only is it a chance for us to have a little more fun with the design, but we find such joy in creating a special, safe landing place for someone’s child. Growing up can feel heavy these days. We think every kid deserves their own little personalized oasis where this can feel easier.

Client Goals
We have previously completed other spaces for this client in their home. When they asked us to pull off a birthday makeover for their son, Baylor, we said yes real quick! Baylor was turning nine. We had two primary goals when starting this project.

Goal one:
To create a fun, yet timeless room so that Baylor could grow and still love it years later. 

Goal two:
To make sure it was personalized and spoke specifically to Baylor.

The process:
Sports Theme & Color Blocking (Goal One)

Baylor loves all things sports so we knew that sports had to be the overall theme of the room. As with most of our designs, we wanted to make sure the theme was infused in a tasteful way and wasn’t too overdone. We also knew that because of his name, Baylor had grown into a big Baylor Bears fan. He had even visited the stadium in person and knew this would have to be part of his special space.

We started by creating a design board for Baylor. We included his current bed and bedding and then added some additional details. We wanted to add in a new desk area, some new sports decor, and some paint colors for our color blocking design. Design boards are meant to serve as an overall starting vision for the project, but often times will change a little bit as the process unfolds.

For example, here is where our vision started for the room.

And here is where it ended.

We knew that we wanted to infuse the Baylor Bears into the room and we knew we were going to have fun with some color blocking. Color blocking is the use of contrasting panels of solid color. It is a fun and easy way to add interest to a wall and is a process we will explain more later in this blog. We initially thought we would incorporate the traditional Baylor Bears school colors of gold and green but it felt a bit too intense and “overly themed”. Instead, we altered our plan to use two shades of green and then brought the yellow/gold into the room in other ways.

For example, we included a gold desk lamp and gold bins for organization. We wanted to wrap the color blocking around the corner of the room and also include a peg board on the wall, so we created a rough mock-up to help us map out the paint placement.

After the client approved the designs, we began by ordering and gathering our supplies needed. As with every project we do, we typically encounter some previously planned item that either goes out of stock, takes way too long to ship, or lands outside of the preferred budget. And sometimes, we actually end up finding a piece we like better. For this project we made a switch from our initial plan for the desk and wall art.

Once it was time to begin, we started with the color blocking. We prepped the area and began by taping out our blocks of color. We did this using a laser level and painters tape.

After taping out our lines we always “seal” the tape by painting the existing wall color on the edges of the tape where you are going to be painting the accent colors. This creates an actual seal that prevents the accent colors from bleeding under the tape. (Don’t skip this step!! It is worth the time upfront so you won’t have to spend time doing a lot of touch ups at the end.)

Once this was dry, we painted all of the dark green color blocking first and most of the lighter green. Once completely dry, we added a 2nd coat. It is best to pull the tape while your paint is still wet. Once those sections had a few hours of dry time, we retaped where the colors overlapped and finished painting the rest of the lighter green color blocking.

When you are finished you will have crisp color blocks that add so much interest to a space. This design feature is also easy to change and paint over down the road if you are ready for something new!

Personalization (Goal Two)

Once the color blocking was completed and had plenty of time to dry, we moved on to our favorite part, adding the details. We truly feel like the magic is in the details. With every client we encounter, we try to think of ways we can add details that feel special and personal.

For Baylor, we decided to add a desk space that included touches personalized for him. This included a sports pendant with his name on it, a sketch of the Baylor University and vintage pins, and a photo strip of some of his wrestling photos.

One of our favorite places to shop when we want to customize special pieces for our clients is Etsy. Time and time again, we find the creators on Etsy to be accommodating, responsive, and true artists. And, we love supporting small businesses like our own and find the quality of these hand-made pieces to be top-notch.

In Baylor’s space, we used Etsy for the bulletin board items, the peg board, and the canvas above the bed. We liked the texture of the canvas and decided we wanted it to say something that fit the sports theme, but also inspired and encouraged Baylor. We chose the definition of Grit because it fit the vision perfectly. We created the definition design on Canva and uploaded it to the customizable canvas listing by LulusPlayhouse on Etsy. It turned out perfectly. We highly recommend their shop and will link them in our Like to Know It links.

Another favorite item was the football play call pillow cover. Unfortunately we found it on Etsy and it is no longer available. However, we will link a similar one at the end of this blog.

We loved how the room turned out, and even more importantly… so did Baylor! We were honored to be a part of making his birthday so special.
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Tips for Styling a Kid/Teen Room

1. Find ways to personalize and build on their interests, but don’t over do it. Try to keep the overall base theme of the room timeless and easy to modify when needed.
2. Stick to neutrals with larger/more expensive items and go bold in areas that are easy to change out.
3. Paint and lighting are always the easiest things to change and to make a big impact.
4. Don’t forget about function, but always try to find ways to make it fit the aesthetic. Find ways to store clutter you don’t want to see and add labels whenever possible to encourage staying organized.

As promised, if you love any of the items used in this blog, we will include a link to all products below. Full disclosure! We do make a small commission on the items featured, which helps us to make more great content to continue sharing with our audience!

Links:
Check out this Like to Know It page for all shoppable links in this post:
https://www.shopltk.com/explore/Neutral.Simplicity/posts/7b08143e-a541-11ee-a49d-0242ac110002

You can also visit our Like to Know It page for more great inspiration here:
https://www.shopltk.com/explore/Neutral.Simplicity.

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Additional before and after photos for this space:

Shoppable Links:
https://www.shopltk.com/explore/Neutral.Simplicity/posts/7b08143e-a541-11ee-a49d-0242ac110002