Re-Decorating Thomas’ Room with Clevelands

**Disclosure: I received complimentary and discounted products from Clevelands to help with this project.**

Thomas, being the second child, seems to get the short end of the stick. There are fewer baby pictures of him. We don’t work as hard with him on writing or riding his bike.

When Thomas was born, I didn’t even do a nursery for him. We simply put him in the spare room and added a few wall stickers from the dollar store and called it his bedroom.

Thomas is now 6 years old. His room has not changed.
In fact, as you can see in the attached picture, it’s a giant junk pile!

In September we finally bought him a desk instead of the two tv-trays he was using before.

It’s about time I did something about it!
I want to decorate Thomas’s room.

I need to decorate Thomas’ room. I owe him that much!

Thomas is obsessed with Hot Wheels. He has hundreds of cars, bedsheets and paraphernalia. I want to make him a Hot Wheels bedroom.

It started with his idea of wanting an orange room. I wasn’t sure about a whole room done in orange, which then made me think about using blue as an accent colour to mimic the Hot Wheels logo.

This was my plan for last fall.

I am not an interior decorator. I am not a painter. I am a busy mom who is trying to create a nice space for her son.

I’m not great at choosing paint colours (we had someone hired to come in and pick the colours for the house) but, I can do the physical labour.

I know I am not alone. We struggle to make nice spaces for our kids – a place where they can feel at home, and feel that they have ownership over.

We know it can be overwhelming and stressful to pick the colours, designs and come up with the ideas to make it perfect – or close to perfect.
We also want to do it on a budget.

This is where Cleveland’s Carpet and Décor in Kentville comes in! I always get my paint from Clevelands because it is conveniently located in downtown Kentville, and the staff are so friendly and ever so helpful!

I spoke with Debbie Chisholm from Clevelands who agreed to help me with Thomas’ room. I was relieved, because I was beyond my comfort zone in choosing colours or knowing where to start.

I brought in a pillowcase from Thomas’ Hot Wheels bed set and we picked a blue and orange that matched. We decided to paint one accent wall orange and the others blue. Debbie thought a race car border would go well with the theme, so I took home a few books for him to choose.

That was the plan until Thomas heard it. Always to have a mind of his own, he decided to have half of every wall orange and half blue. “Mommy, you can choose if the orange is on the top or the bottom, though!”

The next problem was the wallpaper books. I should have done what my instincts told me and just take a picture of the border, but I brought home the whole book.

A week later, I wrote this message to Debbie:

“I am in a bit of an impasse with my son who has a mind of his own! He LOVED the wallpaper book! In fact, he found three borders that he wants all stacked one on top of the other!
I told him, that wasn’t happening!
So, now he’s determined to have Hot Wheels paint and a dinosaur border. (Have I mentioned he’s stubborn?) I’m trying to convince him we should change the paint colours and just have a dinosaur room, but he’s having none of that!
I’m going to give him the weekend, and hopefully my mom can convince him.
Otherwise… I might just do the paint.”

There was no convincing Thomas. After discussing, arguing, demanding, negotiating and talking to Thomas I took a breath and realized something.

It is his room. It is his space. His choice. His empowerment.
Does it really matter?
No, it doesn’t.

So, over November I painted his room – the top orange, and the bottom blue. Because it was so dark, it required a lot of coats.

Next, the paint had to cure for several weeks before we could put the wallpaper border on.
Debbie helped me order the border, and figure out how much we needed based on the room measurements. Another great relief since I am terrible at math!

Another snag. That border was discontinued!
Again, home came the wallpaper books, and Thomas picked another dinosaur border.

Actually, he picked 3 borders. He wanted all three stacked one on top of the other! I managed to get him to pick ONE.
LUCKILY, it matched perfectly with the paint colours!

When the border arrived, my mom came over to help me wallpaper. Correction. She wallpapered and I held the tools. I have no patience for precision, so it worked better this way. And, Thomas came and helped, too. He was a much better helper than me.

He even took the scraps and wallpapered our hallway.

When all was said and done, Thomas’ room looked amazing. Combined with the new dinosaur sheets he got from Nana for Christmas, it was the perfect room.

“Mommy, I just want to lie in here all day and look at it,” said Thomas.

And, that made it all worth while.