The beginning of a little boy’s bedroom design!

Do you have any furniture sitting around that isn’t being used?  The shelves below used to be part of an entertainment center way back when, and they were sitting in my friend Dani’s garage. They were a little worn, and they needed some love, but nothing beats a FREE piece of furniture that is sitting around.

The first thing we did was replace the backs of the shelves to help with stability. She bought some MDF to put on the back, and the MDF is pretty thick and heavy so it will definitely help with the stability of the shelves. We used a brad nailer to secure the MDF onto the backs of the shelves. The workers at Lowe’s cut the MDF sheets for us. 🙂 

Then we filled the holes with putty. The putty is paint-able so when it was dry, we sanded it lightly to be even and then painted the whole thing.

IMPORTANT: These shelves are NOT real wood. They are made with compressed materials with laminate on top. YES, you can paint this kind of project. Just be aware of the condition of the project. If there are a lot of gaping holes or deep scratches, you won’t be able to sand it to fix them like real wood.

Next, we primed them. You will notice that I primed this project with Krylon gray. If I could go back I would have used KILZ to prime them.  KILZ was sold out at the store and since we were painting the shelves navy blue, I thought that it might be good to prime them with a darker color. Don’t make my mistake. Only buy KILZ.

It took three to four coats of Krylon gray primer to cover them. This made our project into a three day project instead of a one and a half day project.

Then after the primer was dry, we started the painting process. I say “process” because Navy Blue is one of those translucent colors that takes a lot of coats for coverage (I know that now…lol.). Red is another one of those colors. We covered the shelves with four maybe even five coats of paint. Sidenote: If we would have known how much paint we were going to need, we would NOT have bought spray paint. I am a lover of the convenience of spray paint, but it costs much more than a gallon of paint sometimes.

So, we painted and painted and painted. By the time we got done, we were smurfs! Click on the picture to get the full effect!

 Getting closer!

You may be wondering why she chose navy blue. Inspiration for room designs can come from anywhere. In the case of bedrooms I suggest to always look for bedding before you begin your design. Bedding is definitely something that can inspire the rest of the design, AND bedding is a great way to choose a color scheme.

Here were her criteria with bedding selection:
1. She wanted something that could go with multiple themes. For example she didn’t want a comforter covered in cars because she wanted to be able to change the theme later if needed.
2. She wanted stripes.
3. She wanted it to be high quality.
4. She wanted something that would go with a vintage car or vintage sports theme. (She couldn’t decide which one she wanted).

We looked for a little while online and then she found exactly what she was looking for at Target! I love her choice of bedding. It is called Circo boy preppy quilt set. Loved it. Loved it. Here it is below:

So, after she had chosen her bedding, she chose the color of the shelves to be navy blue.Here is the end result! I loved all her accessories. 

I loved the toy storage bins that she put on the shelves. I thought it was so cute too to put her husband’s toy bin from when he was little in between the shelves. I thought it was so darn cute in her little boy’s room.

Doesn’t this little boy’s room look stinikin’ cute so far!!??!! Stay tuned for more of this room. And these shelves were sitting in her garage! 🙂