It’s the kids turn this week and I’m going to show you my modern kids room makeover which was a tricky birth (bad pun I know – indulge me!) due to a total visual overload via Pinterest and various other online sources. But in the end I managed to condense my wishlist for their room: contemporary and not too child-like – a room that can adapt to their changing needs with a strong accent colour and clean lines with some quirky elements injecting personality but most importantly easy to keep tidy with a limited number of shelves for books and toys to have on display.
The older I get the more minimalist I become. I find getting rid of stuff incredibly cathartic and whether they like it or not my family has to put up with it. When it comes to kids toys I often come out in a rash… all that plastic makes me uneasy and I constantly worry about consumerism, fast-everything and our throw-away culture. Add worries about the planet, landfill sites, climate change and sustainability and my anxiety levels are right up there which is why I’ve always tried to be very thoughtful about the amount and the kind of toys I’ve given to the kids. Construction toys like Lego are thankfully a favourite as are all wooden toys like the Brio train set which has kept them entertained since they were tiny. But however hard I try crap / stuff / clutter just accumulates when I turn my back for just 5 minutes. So when I designed the kids room I vowed to actually limit the toy cupboard space. If there’s no space for a new toy we either don’t get it or get rid of something.
To achieve the modern, clean lines I was after I bought some Ikea carcasses and customised them with simple birch plywood doors that I treated with OSMO oil prior to installation. The #ikeahack was harder than I initially thought due to uneven floors and walls but I’m really happy with the result. Since the boys manage to break pretty much anything I chose 20mm thick birch plywood and instead of handles I had our handyman cut in round holes.
The cupboards run all along the wall underneath the window and are the perfect height for the kids to build their Lego creations and train sets. Initially I had plans to put a soft mat on top and make a large window seat but I realise that this will only encourage re-enactment of Ninja scenes so I scrapped that idea for now.
In terms of adding some personality to their room I discovered UK based Murals Wallpaper about a year ago via Pinterest when I saw a shot of a huge old fashioned map of the world covering a bedroom wall. Now, for as long as I can remember I’ve been fascinated by maps. I had a globe when I was young and I would often loose myself looking at it, closing my eyes, spinning it and pointing my finger randomly to where I was going to travel when I was grown up. So when I saw the world map by murals wallpaper I knew I had to have it for the kids bedroom.
The great thing is that it’s customised to your exact wall dimensions and you get a PDF proof of what it will look like beforehand in case you want to make any changes. It went up really quickly and easily as it’s only 3 sections and the instructions are easy to follow. I did it by myself but a second pair of hands would have been better as the sections were quite large.
I absolutely love the result and I’m pleased to say so do the boys. They haven’t inherited quite the same enthusiasm as their mum (yet!) but we often study the ‘Atlas’ map and point to where friends and family live: Germany, Colorado, Spain, California, Texas, The Netherlands, Denmark… and we try to guess how long it would take us to get from one place to another. I can already see this is going to be a talking point for years to come.
As I mentioned above we can’t have delicate things around the boys as their testosterone overload and sheer craziness manages to break pretty much anything so their bunk bed had to be close to industrial strength. Luckily I found one at made.com which weighs a ton and needed two adults and an awful lot of patience to put together but fingers crossed it’s withstood any Ninja assault so far and even accommodated two grown-ups the other weekend.
I love how the combination of wooden posts and white veneer panels contrast with Farrow and Ball’s Stiffkey Blue which covers the whole back wall including the radiator. It’s been up for a good 6 months now and there are no finger prints or scratches in sight – hope I haven’t jinxed it now. It’s also a nice calm and strong colour which brings some intimacy to the far corner. I have to say the colour is much richer in real life, changing constantly in different light conditions and it’s got a fantastic depth and density to it that you don’t get with other paints.
WORLD MAP ‘ATLAS’ | Murals Wallpaper kindly gifted
PAINT ‘STIFFKEY BLUE’ | Farrow and Ball kindly gifted
BUNK BED ‘LINUS’ | made.com
BED LINEN AND CUSHIONS | H&M HOME
RUG ‘RAKLEV’ | Ikea
PHOTOGRAPHY | Annie Kruse
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