Bradley's room, version 7.0

Major accomplishments in the Dilbeck home this week. I finished my many projects, completed B's room, found my camera and my wedding ring. I need to slow down or I will die from heat stroke.

I redid Bradley's room for the millionth time. I didn't go nuts and paint walls or spend a lot of money. In fact, I used a lot of what he already had. Then, I looked around the Internet for inspiration pictures and DIY projects. Then I went to Craigslist for cheap furniture and IKEA for textiles (can we say a twin flat or fitted sheet for $1.50????).

It really bugs me that for all the ideas I have for my boy's room, I can't think of anything for my own. Someday I will have to post pictures and beg for inspirational help.

While I was in Kansas I went to some thrift stores and garage sales. I'd like to tell you that my metropolis has nothing on that little town. There were some serious finds: two big ol' lamps for a buck, a vintage Kansas license plate for a fiddy-cent, never been read Dr. Seuss books for one dolla, and three mule feed backs for a buck a piece. Those Dr. Seuss books saved my ass coming home because B's attention span is that of, um...a three year old.

Let me show you what I did with the rest.

The lamp.

Holy hell, these things are a monstrosity. The lamp alone is like four of me and I could hula with the shade. When we got home the shades fell apart so I went to look for new ones, but I couldn't find any big enough. Even WalMart didn't have them and my motto is: If WalMart doesn't have it, then China didn't make it, so it doesn't exist. Right? I ended up getting a specialty glue that was guaranteed to glue the shade back together again and kill a boat load of my brain cells.

Then the fun began. Remember those mule feed bags? I wanted to use them to recover the lamp shade. I was sure that three bags would cover two shades easy peasy. Not really. I told you those suckers were huge. To be exact 18" tall and 47.5" in diameter. I had to cut up two bags to make the shade cover work.

After pinning and adjusting I used my new favorite product ever: Tacky spray glue. Man that stuff makes me happy, and not just because the fumes are out of control.

I thought about putting some ribbon along the top and bottom to pull in other colors from the room, but I liked how it looked rough and a little unfinished.

The actual lamp needed to be repainted, since it was adorned with 70s fab oranges, browns, and gold. I was going to use a paint color we already had in the house, but it had gone bad, so I went to Lowes and hit up the oops paint. I love that area of the paint aisle. I picked up a dark, dusky blue for fifty cents. I was lucky because it matched the feed bags and it was only a few shades darker than the beds (I'll talk about the furniture later).

When all was said and done I had an entire sack left over; it will go in my box o' shit with the hopes I can used it again someday. I also had some scraps left over, so I ripped eight equal strips, hemmed one edge and roughly finished the other (nothing here is super fancy as I am well aware that this is a room for boys and I can't get too attached with anything since it will be the first casualty). If you peek at the pic above you will see what I did with them.

Some curtains I picked up at Tuesday Mornings for $6 needed a little something. Originally I thought about getting tie-up curtains, but at $30-some dollars a pop, no thanks.

I am not a matchy-matchy kind of person--I like funky eclectic--but I do appreciate a bit of a tie in. I hemmed one side because my plan was to just use a safety pin to attach the home-made ties and hide the pin in the folded hem, but I couldn't find pins in my house. So, I had to sew them on.

As you can see, those feed bags and lamps kept me busy. I will show you later today what the rest of the room looks like.