Blog,  Me & My Family,  Parenting

Toddler Bedroom Transformation – Paw Patrol

You may have already read my blog post on us buying our first house and it being the first time we have had our own house to do up. Well as I already mentioned, it is a new build so everything was white/cream and bare when we moved in. We have been slowly putting our own stamp on each room and one of the rooms that really bugged me was our little man’s room. He used to have a lovely little nursery in his old house even though it was rented and just all cream, but with his furniture and bedding it all looked nice and worked together. When we moved in to this house he was at the point of taking the side off his cot bed and him basically being a toddler who no longer needed a nursery. So without knowing what we were doing in that room we bought him some marvel superhero bedding and some blue curtains. Which just didn’t really work with the bare walls, cream carpet and dark brown furniture. He also liked to trash his room which meant lots of the furniture looked scruffy and add the scuffed and marked cream walls to the equation, the whole room jut looked awful.

We finally found a day to do his room and to be honest hadn’t fully planned what we were doing until that very day and basically just used stuff we already had. We originally bought some brick kids wallpaper for the play room we were doing and then I decided that I felt it was too grown up for his play room so we never used it. We saw it sitting there and thought, why not just use it on one wall and give it a go in his bedroom. I was worried it would look too grown up or a bit scary for a toddlers room but reassured myself that I could always take it down. In the play room we just used a light blue colour all over and we still had half a tin of it left over so we agreed to do one wall with brick and the rest with the blue colour left over. I had already ordered some wall stickers off Aliexpress (links at the end) for when we eventually did his room and had ordered Paw Patrol stickers as that is what he is crazy about. I had no idea when I ordered them whether I was just going to do Paw Patrol or order other characters he loves from other programmes and put a mix up of everything? I didn’t have a plan for the stickers, I just thought they would be a good idea as they were a bargain.

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When it came to finally decorating his room, we had absolutely no idea how it was going to turn out and if it would actually look good AND if he would even like it (that was what worried me the most). My Mr agreed to put up the wallpaper even though the one other time he tried to wallpaper ended in a big argument, £40 worth of paper thrown in the bin and a big favour from the father in law to sort out the mess. So I really wasn’t holding out much hope for it looking good and could see it the day being rather stressful. I agreed to do the painting and unfortunately as I was the only one who could manage to do edges without it looking like a monkey had dipped his tail in paint and ‘had a go’, I had to do all the neck breaking tricky bits like near the ceiling and the window frame. I was quite surprised how quickly I managed to paint most of his room and to be quite honest, as it was a kiddies room, I didn’t put as much pressure on myself to make it perfect! When you spend a lot of your weekends painting, if there is an easier way to do it you will! There was the odd splodge of blue paint on the gloss edges as I was just trying to get it done so it could dry in time for him going to bed. I could always re-paint the gloss another time and take more care if I have a full day.

Once I had finished painting and it had dried, I tried to quickly put up the wall stickers. This was a lot more challenging than I had expected as they very easily ripped and also curled as I peeled them off. Trying to stick them flat to a wall with no air bubbles or creases is not easy. I definitely recommend two people and ideally a third to stand back and make sure it looks straight, as once it’s on it’s difficult to peel off without pulling half of the wall off. The wall stickers were so effective and I even bought an extra sheet of just paw prints to dot around the room, although I didn’t buy enough so just did one wall for the time being. My only regret is that I didn’t buy a bigger version of the one on his feature wall as it was a bit small although still looked really good. I did have to teach my little one not to try and pick off the stickers on the walls which was a challenge to begin with. He could quite easily pick the paw print off and I kept coming in to some missing. The other ones were much more difficult to pull off and luckily they have been fine as they look painted on rather than stuck on. My main worry was him pulling the wallpaper off but so far (touch wood) he hasn’t tried to.

The Mr and I were so surprised at just how amazing his room turned out. We felt super proud and pleased with ourselves, looking at each other covered head to toe in paint and dripping with sweat. The wallpaper looked surprisingly pretty good and we managed to avoid arguments even when squished in a small room squeezing past all of his furniture which we couldn’t be bothered to move out so decided struggling was the better option. I was so excited for our little man to see his new bedroom but also really nervous as he hadn’t had anything this ‘grown up’ before. It was always soft neutral colours and teddy bears. It also set me off feeling emotional too as I was having to accept that he was no longer a baby, all of the babyish decor had gone, including his cot quilt he’d had since a newborn. It all was replaced by some big bright colourful cartoon characters. It was actually rather hard to accept that he no longer had a nursery, this was a proper child’s bedroom. His room does feel really cosy and looks very cute but in a toddler way, not a sweet baby’s nursery room way. Once I saw his little face when he saw his new bedroom I was so happy and it made all (well most) of the sadness disappear. It was nice to be able to do something for him that was created by his parents. That we put a lot of hard work in to and that he really appreciated! I am dreading when he finally stops liking Paw Patrol and we will have to re-do his room. Fingers crossed it is something simple, easy and not too grown up!! Not sure I am mentally strong enough do up his room again if it is super grown up!

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As well as decorating his room we also moved all the furniture around and it felt so much better space wise. I do want to get new furniture eventually as It is a bit tatty looking now. Either that or I will paint it but I would like a proper toddler bed for my little man. I also managed to grab a little storage set from a carboot for £2.50 which was perfect for his toys and I turned his old changing dresser in to another storage area. I put all of his cuddly toys where the changing mat used to be and used the shelves underneath as a place to keep everything I didn’t want on show in there. It worked really well and meant we didn’t need to get rid of it and we didn’t need to buy something else. We have since also bought him the matching bedding and will be getting more bits to keep adding in like a new light shade and some more stickers to go around the room. I am not trying to rush to get every room finished but if I can just do bits here and there then it makes it feel more like our home. Hopefully a home that we will be happy in for many years to come!

 

Materials:

Paint – Dulux, First Dawn £16.42 (2.5l) or 2  for £26

Wallpaper – Red Brick Wallpaper £14/roll

Sticker – Paw Patrol breaking out of wall £2.54

Sticker – Paw Patrol Ryder and pups £2.10

Sticker – Paw Prints £1.30

Bedding – Paw patrol £14

Please Note: Some links to deals may be affiliate links. This does not affect how much you pay however I may earn a very small percentage of the sale from a company which they will pay. This means that I can keep this site running and get bigger prizes for competitions :)

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