Ari’s Room: All Finished! Rustic-Industrial Tween Room

Posted on by
Pin6K
Share2
Tweet
6K Shares

All done! This one took us a little longer than the nursery, since Ari was already born and there was no built in deadline….but I’m really pleased with how it turned out. And, almost as even more importantly, Ari is, too.  And now for the long post with tour and sources for everything. (I guess it would be more exciting if I did things the opposite way: did a big room reveal first and then went back and did individual posts about all the projects. But I am not nearly patient enough for all that. Plus there’d be like 4 months where I didn’t have anything to blog about. I saved a few little things for the big reveal, though).

So here is the room back before we moved in:

And here it is a few months ago, right before we started working on it (we’d painted–Ari picked the color–before moving in). The original plan was much less ambitious and mostly involved painting furniture. But we got a little carried away:

And now:

I’ll go wall by wall. On that wall we have the plank headboard that we made and the vintage bedside table we painted.

I was supposed to make a no sew bed skirt for Ari’s bed, but….I just couldn’t. It made me very tired and sad to think about. It would not have been hard, just tedious, but I’m just burned out on making no sew stuff and I was ready to be finished in here. So I went to Target and bought a fitted sheet to put over the box spring instead. Now I have seven yards of gray fabric to find something to do with.

He’s very into Portal 2 these days and found this poster online, of Portal 2 if it were a 70’s sci-fi movie. I thought it was pretty cool, too, and we needed something for that wall, so I ordered it.

I talked about this grouping of pictures here.

Sources:
paint: Martha Stewart’s Kerry Blue Terrier (Home Depot), trim is MS’s Brook Trout
bedding and pillows: Ikea
lamp on wall next to bed: Ikea
Portal 2 poster: valvesoftware.com
poster frame: Hobby Lobby
paint on bedside table (and desk and dresser): Valspar High Speed Steel
knobs on bedside table (and desk): Hobby Lobby

Moving along:

My mom found the vintage fan at a yard sale. We’re planning to rewire it so that he can actually use it.

We painted the dresser with a stylized subway map design and made the curtains and curtain rods.

Sources:
Curtain fabric: “gray canvas” from Fabric.com
Union Jack box: TJ Maxx
Bing Bong print: Ikea
silver ribba frames: Ikea
Tabouret chair from Overstock.com with Ikea cushion
Tokyo skyline print from Loose Petals on Etsy

Next wall!

We made the London skyline out of plywood. We redid the desk with paint and stain. No new sources to speak of on this wall, really.

And, finally:

That’s not a real dart board; it’s Doink It darts. Magnets, not pointy things. We took the bifold closet doors down awhile and put that shower curtain (from Target) up instead. I’m not super crazy about it in here, but Ari wanted it to stay. I think I’d prefer putting the doors back, painted brown like the trim. But, you know, it’s not my room. Behind the curtain there’s a cabinet from Ikea for storage and…..a lot of stuff. But it’s all behind the curtain! yay!

And that completes our tour. Here is how Ari feels about his new room. He says to say it’s, “Ari approved.”

ari's room wide shot + london skyline

Linking with:
Craftionary’s Friday Link Party
Inspiration Gallery
The Shabby Nest’s Frugal Friday
Tatertots and Jello’s Weekend Wrap Up
Monday Funday
By Stephanie Lynn’s Sunday Showcase Party
Home Stories A to Z’s Tutorials and Tips
Tuesday’s Treasures at My Uncommon Slice of Suburbia
Stone Gable’s Tutorials, Tips, and Tidbits
Hookin’ Up With House of Hepworths
Before and After Competition with One Project Closer
Thrifty Decor Chick’s August Before and After

Comments

Ari’s Room: All Finished! Rustic-Industrial Tween Room — 52 Comments

  1. It all turned out wonderful! I love all the “geek” art. It’s all the kind of stuff Nate would make me put up (he is, after all, secretly a tween still) I agree with you about the closet doors- but that’s also because as a kid a door made it way easier to shove stuff in the closet! Yay! Next room!

    Reply ↓

  3. This looks great! I have to agree that I like the project by project posting you were doing rather than the full-reveal & then the recap approach. I think my favorite thing in the room is the plywood skyline, but really I love all of it. Oh and the headboard looks GREAT in that room. I remember you thinking it might be too tall, but I think you’ve balanced it out nicely with the art. Ari is a lucky boy to get such a great room!
    Sarah

    Reply ↓

    • Thanks, Sarah! I was thinking last night that I’ve decided I’m happy with the headboard height….I don’t know how much is the artwork balancing it out and how much is just getting used to it.

      Reply ↓

  6. Oh, how exciting to see Ari’s room finished! Loved watching it come together and the completed space. The art is so much fun and perfect for a tween boy. Such a great room!

    Reply ↓

  7. I’m glad you found making a bed skirt tedious too. I ended up wrapping Abe’s box spring with fabric and securing it on the bottom with staples. My staple gun makes me happy in ways my sewing machine never could…

    Ari’s room looks fantastic! Who’s room is next?

    Reply ↓

  8. Ohhhhhh I L.O.V.E it!!! love love love….

    I am of course over the moon about all your DIY projects. Goes without saying. The headboard, the painted furniture, the curtains+rods, the ferris wheel (which has inspired me to make something with a ferris wheel too … I have a plan ;)). I love that fan (rhymes). I will be excited to know if you can re-wire it. That would be fantastic. Love the union jack box. Love the bedding you chose. I goes so well with everything. I think it was a smart solution to go with the Target fitted sheet. Great to see the white chairs in there too 🙂

    Reply ↓

    • Thanks, Katja! I’ll be excited to see if we can rewire it, too. Ari really likes having fans going (he ALWAYS sleeps with the ceiling fan on), so it will be nice if we can get it functional instead of just cool looking 🙂

      Reply ↓

  21. Did you have any trouble covering up the stripes on the wall? I’m about to paint over stripes that were previously painted on the wall and I’m wondering if I need to do anything special to make them disappear.

    Reply ↓

    • I know we made sure to do a coat of primer first specifically because of the stripes. And then I can’t remember if it took one or two coats after that. But it wasn’t any harder than covering up just a run of the mill darker color paint job 🙂

      Reply ↓

  24. Pingback: Michael’s Room | Marissa's Musings

  26. Gretchen, you did a great job in here! I really like all of the rustic touches, especially that headboard! It looks like the perfect room for a teen boy. The Martha Stewart’s Kerry Blue Terrier looks SO good in here, and I’d love to feature this on my paint color blog, Involving Color. You wouldn’t have to do a thing, just let me know if you’re interested!

    Reply ↓

Like all human bloggers, I love comments :)

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.