Laura Hamann
09-07-2001, 11:11 AM
I did my son's room for about $800 total, so I thought I'd share! After much thinking, I decided to go with a barnyard theme since my son's grandpa is a farmer. I noticed that Target had lots of barnyard room decor, so I bought the lightswitch cover, the coat rack, a pig wall rack and a giant barn curio cabinet. I also bought another barn wall hanging off EBAY for $2. The Target items were all reasonable, as well. I painted a mural on all four walls by myself, and it was easier and more fun than I thought. I'd ordered several farm coloring books off Amazon.com and copied my favorite pages/animals onto transparency paper at work. Then I went to the local library and rented an overhead machine. I painted rolling hills about halfway up his walls and a sky the next. For both, I used the technique where you paint the solid green (hills) and blue (sky) on the walls, then paint "X" shapes all over on top and blend with a rag. It made the mural look much softer. Then I drew a giant tree in the corner and sponged the leaves on it. I placed two painted shelves in the corner as part of the tree's 'bark' for storage and stamped some birds in the tree. Finally, I got some cheap acrylic paint from Michael's and traced my farm animals all over using the transparency machine. I put the farm off in the distance on top of one of the hills, and grouped the animals on certain places on the wall..pigs in one corner, horses in one spot, cows, goats, sheep and chickens. I spread them out and didn't do more than 2-3 of each animal. I varied the sizes to give a dimensional effect of some animals being closer and some being farther away. Then I hand painted several trees off in the distance and added a white picket fence using stencils all the way around the bottom of the room. The mural is beautiful, with very soft colors.
For furniture, we found a headboard that was green and looked like window shutters and a white shelf with two picket fence doors at at Centex model home auction and bought both for $80. We removed the white fence doors and painted the shelf barnyard red, then put the white fence doors back on. What an effect! I found a matching nightstand at Rooms To Go Kids on clearance for $65. Finally, we bought a naked, unassembled armoire from Lowe's for $100, put it together and painted it denim blue and stained the top. We also purchased a naked table and chair set and stained it ourselves. The effect is that all the furniture is a different color: shelf is barnyard red, nighstand is barnyard red, bed is green, armoire is denim blue and table is stained to match top of nightsand and armoire.
I had an old rectangular cornice board, and I don't sew, so I went to Wal Mart and got some solid barnyard red fabric, some styrofoam blocks, some black felt and some 1-inch thick white ribbon. I just cut the styro foam and glued it to the top of the cornice so that it would make a roof shape, stretched and stapled the barnyard red fabric over the entire piece, cut the felt into squares and layered them with hot glue on top of the roof and hot glued the white ribbon into two squares with "X"s in them for the barn doors. It is darling!
Finally, I splurged and ordered barnyard print curtains, a quilt, two quilted pillow shams, a throw pillow and a round rug from Patch Magic. You can view their products at www.foreverinseason.com. Their products are pricey, but if you own a business, you can get them wholesale.
As a finishing touch, I bought a giant stuffed cow and put it on his bed. The cow is now lovingly referred to as "Oobie" and my toddler has grown quite close to him! The room was fun, is adorable and should last until he is about 7 years old.
Good luck!
Laura
For furniture, we found a headboard that was green and looked like window shutters and a white shelf with two picket fence doors at at Centex model home auction and bought both for $80. We removed the white fence doors and painted the shelf barnyard red, then put the white fence doors back on. What an effect! I found a matching nightstand at Rooms To Go Kids on clearance for $65. Finally, we bought a naked, unassembled armoire from Lowe's for $100, put it together and painted it denim blue and stained the top. We also purchased a naked table and chair set and stained it ourselves. The effect is that all the furniture is a different color: shelf is barnyard red, nighstand is barnyard red, bed is green, armoire is denim blue and table is stained to match top of nightsand and armoire.
I had an old rectangular cornice board, and I don't sew, so I went to Wal Mart and got some solid barnyard red fabric, some styrofoam blocks, some black felt and some 1-inch thick white ribbon. I just cut the styro foam and glued it to the top of the cornice so that it would make a roof shape, stretched and stapled the barnyard red fabric over the entire piece, cut the felt into squares and layered them with hot glue on top of the roof and hot glued the white ribbon into two squares with "X"s in them for the barn doors. It is darling!
Finally, I splurged and ordered barnyard print curtains, a quilt, two quilted pillow shams, a throw pillow and a round rug from Patch Magic. You can view their products at www.foreverinseason.com. Their products are pricey, but if you own a business, you can get them wholesale.
As a finishing touch, I bought a giant stuffed cow and put it on his bed. The cow is now lovingly referred to as "Oobie" and my toddler has grown quite close to him! The room was fun, is adorable and should last until he is about 7 years old.
Good luck!
Laura