Snoopin' in the Boys Room

My childhood bedroom was yellow with a white canopy bed, complete with  yellow and white floral print bedding and curtains.  All the furniture was white and there were baby dolls, stuffed animals and Barbies from corner to corner and top to bottom. And it was usually a mess.  I was not born with the neatness gene...ahem.


My boys weren't either.  


But lately I have started making them take a little more responsibility for the condition of their rooms.  Though after the little walk thrus and photo shoot I just conducted, I think we have some work to do. I found unfolded clothes stuffed in the drawers that were all open in Dracen's room, you can't see the closet floors in either room and the dust is about three inches thick.  


But this post, inspired by Mama Kat's Workshop, is supposed to be about my favorite parts of their rooms so that is what we will be focusing on...


First stop, Dracen's Room.


I had to chuckle the other day when I went into his room to put something away and saw the way he'd carefully arranged a few items on his desk the last time he straightened up...   

These little critters hanging onto the world for dear life made me laugh out loud.

This puppy and monkey in a best buddy pose made me smile.  He's always had a thing for monkeys, so much so that I used to bring him one back anytime I went on a trip.  This particular one was bought at the dollar store for his nursery before he was even born.

The placement of this little cross atop this desk clock touched my heart.  It reminds me that he has never known a life without the knowledge of Jesus.

We do love our little wieners!

One of my most favorite things about his room is this antique bed that served as a guest bed, once upon a time. It is also the same bed Dracen balanced on the rails of in order to turn up the volume on his t.v. the night before we were to leave on a beach trip when he was four years old, busted his forehead open when he slipped and fell on it and landed us in the ER for hours the night before our trip.  It really didn't slow him down much though.  Not much does...

 This picture was actually taken over the summer.  Things aren't quite that neat in there at the present and that beloved Curious George who he once could not go to sleep or barely leave the house without?  Well...I found him here...

Behind the bed.  Poor George!  

This corner bookshelf is another of my favorite things about the room. I gave it a makeover last summer...

 It looked like this before...

And of course, as does his big brother and most other boys I know , he LOVES him some baseball.

I found this little treasure at Kirkland's. It hangs behind the bed.

And this hard hitting silhouette came from Pottery Barn. There is a football player on the other wall.  

Next stop, Devin's Room.

Devin is not into "stuff" as much as Dracen is and as much as I always was.  I was a major pack rat.  Devin is more simplified, preferring to throw something away rather than find a spot for it...

One of my favorite things in Devin's room is this license plate U.S. map we found at Hobby Lobby last summer.  I was under the impression it was 50% off until we got to the register and realized I had looked at the sign wrong.  But Devin so seldom finds something he likes this much (and since I was pretty in love with it myself), I said WTH? and bought it anyway.   

   It hangs over his desk (the one he never uses) that I spent many hours painting several months ago.  It had been Charlie's desk as a youth.  I did a post about it that you can read here if you're interested. I was quite proud of it and am still holding out hope that one day he will actually sit at it to do his homework, rather than on the couch or in the floor, after I've threatened him with his life.

On his dresser, I found a butt load supply of airsoft pellets (some of which are not pictured because they were floating in a vast sea of dust particles) and on and underneath his nightstand are yearbooks for every year since kindergarten, some paperbacks he was forced to read for school, a travel Scrabble, a couple of signed baseballs and a hand grenade paperweight (Yep, he's pretty much an all boy kinda boy).

 

I love this little area of wall space beside his window.  He picked out the Louisville Slugger sign that day at Hobby Lobby, the orange clock he picked out at Kohl's, and the vintage Coca-Cola girl playing tennis belonged to my mother.  She dug it out when she was going through some stuff last summer.  She had never even hung it and asked if I wanted it.  Devin surprised me by asking if he could have it in his room. I painted the frame black...

And that concludes our tour for today and reminds me just how much my life has changed since my early days of floral prints and canopy beds!  

Some parents say it is guns that make boys warlike.  But give a boy a rubber duck and he will seize its neck like the butt of a pistol and shout "Bang!" ~George F. Will