A Boy's Colourful Bedroom Update...

 When we moved into our new house late last year, we really stretched ourselves and knew we wouldn't be able to afford to update it and decorate it to our taste for a while. The previous owners had 3 children and each of their bedrooms were decorated in bright colours (bright pink in one, aqua in Little L's and sky blue in LO's room). Aside from the cost of redecorating the house, as we tend to do all our decorating ourselves we knew that with a 3 year old and a baby we weren't going to have the time to commit to decorating. It took enough time to just get our things unpacked out of boxes without worrying about decorating too. Luckily, LO decided he really liked the decor in his room and despite it looking a little tired in areas, he loves it and we've decided to keep it as it is for now.

I wanted to show a few ways in which we have given his room a little update without spending much money at all. I've spent a good few months re-arranging his room to get the most out of the space, switched around furniture from other rooms and made a couple of little changes to give him a cosy, colourful space to call his own.

Instead of buying more furniture, I decided to take this Ikea Kallax unit out of Little L's room and put it in here. We love how his room is themed around bright colours and the primary coloured storage bins make the room so cheery and bright. We keep a lot of his toys in those and then have one space for books he's currently reading. I picked up the red and white canvas storage bin from TKMaxx for about £7. It's great for storing his Brio wooden train tracks in. One thing we want to add in is a reading corner with a beanbag and picture ledges to display books on. 

LO's room is quite a funny shape as the house was re-ordered a few years ago when they added an extension. They moved the staircase and as a result his room got a bit more space added on, making it a bit of a L shape. I've rearranged his room so many times since we moved, but finally settled on having his bed and Kallax unit in the alcove. 

Changing the bedding made such a big change to the whole feel and style of the room. I got a lot of questions about his bedding when I posted a photo of his room on Instagram. It cost around £12 and is from Ikea. I love the F cushion as well, which was from George at Asda.

Instead of buying lots of specific decorations and trinkets, I display his nicer wooden toys. He can still reach them to play with but they also make a really nice display. 

His wooden toys are all so bright and colourful. I love this wooden clock and the little library of Beatrix Potter books. 

 LO is obsessed with vehicles, specifically trains and construction vehicles. Luckily, the previous owners had stuck construction themed wall stickers around the room. Although they're not to my taste, LO seems to love them and it's given his room a bit of a theme. To match this, I've put some of his nicer construction vehicles on display on his little cast iron fireplace one of my favourite features in his room). As he likes the construction theme, I may do a little update and get a couple of construction signs to go on his wall or for him to play construction sites with. If you wanted to do a bit of construction or traffic wall art for your child's bedroom, Stock Signs sell a variety of different signs from construction site signage to traffic signs, speed limit signs, or signs with diggers on. He's obsessed with anything to do with construction or vehicles and would love some of these.

We got LO a little desk from Ikea. It was a total bargain at £5 and he loves to sit here and do puzzles. When he gets more into Lego I may turn it into a custom Lego table. We also put a little globe on his table as he loves maps and looking for all the different countries he's been to.

So that's how we have updated his new bedroom with a few simple low priced pieces of furniture and by using things we already had to add a bit of interest to the decor. We will eventually paint the room and woodwork, as well as adding a few things like picture ledges to create a reading corner, but for now, he loves this little space and it just seems to work. It's amazing what a difference you can make to a room without even decorating it, by being  bit thrifty and using things you already have.


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