Loft bed, decorating ideas solicited

[celticdragonfly]

Maggie now has her own room, with Brendan's old loft bed in it. She is sleeping there part time, and part time in the big nursery bed. The goal now is to get Jamie his own bed and move the big queensize into the guest room.

He loves to climb up into Maggie's loft, so we were thinking a loft bed for him too. Or possibly bunkbeds if that was easier to find, although the 2nd bed seems silly. We went shopping Sunday and did a bunch of hunting online too.


OW. ow ow ow. My goodness how expensive.

So now we're looking at building our own to this set of plans --->

I'm going to get help building it. What I'm wondering about is decorating it. Karl's first reaction was oh, just leave it plain and seal it. And we could do that.

But there's so FEW places I can put ornamentation in his life. There's not much in the way of "little boy decor" I'm going to want around. I can't get him beautiful fancy outfits, sigh. No pretty barrettes or hairbands. I don't want him to think I care more about his sister because she gets all the ornamentation.

So I'm wondering about decorating it. I could get out celtic knotwork designs and the woodburner, and do it up like I did my spinning wheel - probably the slowest option, but it would be nice. I could paint it a solid color, a nice cheery blue maybe. I could paint it more than one color - one for the frame and another for the ladder? Or I could paint it solid and then paint some kind of decorations on it, or decals or they do those wallpaper cutout things, or... what?

I'm hoping to get a run in to Hobby Lobby, without the kids, so I can poke around and look for ideas.

And I would really love suggestions, please.

Comments

[kattelyn.livejournal.com]

Uhh, as much as I'm probably getting myself into trouble with this, I do sew... sorta.. and I need practice making curtains, and I'm pretty handy with a sewing machine.

As far as decorating the bed, I haven't read the entire thread but how about great big primary colours with letters and numbers and stuff stenciled all over it? like each piece of wood be a different BRIGHT primary colour. Red, blue, yellow, you get the idea. Down bottom, attach a board along the entire back of the lower part, and get some of that paint that turns walls into a chalkboard, and have that be a little play area with a chalkboard and chalk and stuff. Boys like BRIGHT primary colours, and so do toddlers... so have fun.

Here's an idea. Go get some water based paint and get them involved! Handprints, and next to that stencil in the date and whose hand it was! Everybody can get involved! Mama's hand, Daddy's hand, Maggie's hand, Jaimie's hand!

*grins* tada, instant heirloom!

[celticdragonfly.livejournal.com]

I think I'm getting pretty hooked on the design idea lower in the comments of doing it deep blue with stars and moons, using some star and moon sheets Brendan had, and generally doing a stars and rockets design decor for his room.

But I'd love to take you up on help making curtains - possibly I'll find some calico with star patterns on it, once it's built.

And I DO like the idea of the chalkboard! Thanks. I'll talk to them about that when I go get paint.