angsty teen boy’s room

One of the great features of my son’s angsty teen boy bedroom update was the floor to ceiling bulletin board. Remember?

Cool, huh?

Yeah.

So this happened…

Not cool.

All points of the bulletin board fell off the wall. Every. single. cork. tile.

The double-sided tape that came with the tiles came was seriously irrelevant.

Now to be honest with you – and you know I always am – I vaguely recall reading somewhere on the internets that some blogger had experienced a similar problem. But as is often the case, I don’t believe that such things can happen to me. Until they do.

But by that point, I had forgotten where I read about the irrelevant double-sided tape and cork tile dilemma, so I had to come up with a solution of my own.

So of course I let the problem cure for a bit to allow me to come up with the most creative option.

Problem solved! With these…

Some sort of washers and galvanized roofing nails…

As always, it was an entertaining Men are From Mars, Women are From Venus conversation with the guy helping me at Home Depot, when I tried to explain my creative inspiration and that I needed silver-colored nails with a big head and large washers with a small hole so that the nail head couldn’t fit through. Complete with hand gestures that could have been mistaken for a mild form of sexual harassment.

After looking at me like I just offered him a hit on my crack pipe, he led me to something I didn’t need in the nail department and something else I didn’t need in the washer section, at which point I pretended that was exactly what I needed so that he would move along, then I ferreted out what I really needed on my own.

But I digress…back to the project…

Starting at the ceiling, I placed the tile back on the irrelevant double-sided tape – I left it up as a guide, plus it acts as a spacer between the tile and the wall, so that hopefully the push pins don’t puncture the drywall.

Then I eyeballed the placement (because that’s what I do – why measure when you can eyeball?) and tapped the nail through the washer. Lather, rinse, repeat, and voila! Project salvaged and with an industrial chic flair!

Looks better than it did before! (And if you look carefully, you can see a reflection of my girlish figure in the poster to the right of the bulletin board.)

Success! And super stylish to boot!

Here’s a close-up…

A super-fun save for what could have been a massive project fail!

My little boy is not so little anymore.

In fact, he’s a teenager. Guess that means it’s high time for an angsty teen room.

When we last saw the boy’s room, it was a vintage cowboy room…

Not so cool for a teenager. So sadly it had to go.

Then it needed to cure for the requisite length of time. Here at Homage Style, we don’t just jump into projects. We think them through, allowing the creative juices to flow. Some call this procrastination. I call it the creative spirit!

Well, this past week, my son went to Washington, DC with his 8th grade class, so I decided to take some time off from my day job and revamp the boy’s room. So off I went on yet another design vacation.

My son picked his own paint color and it was deep cobalt blue from Behr. I felt that it might be a little dark and overpowering, but then again, I’m just the mom…what the hell do I know? So I let him have his paint color. Ultimately it was the perfect color to set the tone for a dark and angsty teen room.

Let’s take a look around the room, before the angsty teen boy gets home and kicks us out! Here’s the finished product…

With two windows, the room gets plenty of light, plus the black and white striped curtains from Ikea help to keep things light and fun.

At the foot of the bed are two grey beanbag chairs…

For the record, I don’t advocate TVs in kid’s rooms, but the boy scavenged this one, and a little dumpster diving never hurt anyone, so I let him keep it. Plus there’s no cable, so he can only play video games on it. Aren’t those beanbag chairs perfect for gaming?

In the corner above the TV is a globe lamp that I made myself from a discarded globe my sister the school teacher gave me…

Globe lamp how-to blog post coming soon. Bet my sister’s sorry she gave up that little treasure!

On the wall next to the TV is an old laminate bookcase that I spray painted ages ago for kid #1 and it’s still going strong. Above it is a manly French memo board that I created from a wooden retail display shelf…

Ohio State fans, don’t mind the Michigan hat…he only wears it on crazy hat day!

How-to blog post for the French memo board will be coming soon too.

The memo board is my pride and joy of the entire room! I’ve been percolating on this idea for quite some time now and was thrilled with how it turned out!

A closer look…

The wall opposite the window has some great features as well, like the floor-to-ceiling bulletin board made of 12″x 12″ cork tiles…

Isn’t that fun? Right now there’s a synthesizer in front of it, but I’m sure it won’t be long before it’s covered with all sorts of memorabilia.

Notice the You Are Awesome poster that I made last year at a letterpress printing class I took with some girlfriends. Plus there’s the lava lamp…isn’t that a requirement for every angsty teen room?

And the black and white striped canvas balances out the black and white curtains on the other side of the room and breaks up all that blue. It was super easy and cheap to make…just painted the canvas white, then taped off for the black stripes, painted the black stripes, and voila!

We’ve all heard the saying, the best things in life are free. Well, this is especially true for free art! It’s the best!

I was lucky enough to score some advertising art posters from work and was thrilled that they were the perfect colors and style for the boy’s room. And by score, I mean co-opt them after someone left the company and left these bad boys behind. The first is a cool clown placed to the left of the window…

And the other is a giant robot towering above the headboard…

To the left of the robot poster is a Serbian ethnic instrument, a tambura, which the boy occasionally tries his hand at. It, along with the wooden French memo board and the cork board, as well as the natural wood on the furniture and the wooden box on the nightstand add an earthier touch to what could otherwise be a too cold blue room. All the beautiful wood tones warm up the room while giving it a very masculine touch.

I was really happy with the way the room turned out, but was especially thrilled when the boy came home and said he LOVED his new room! I’d call that a successful design vacation!

all points bulletin [board]

design vacation :: angsty teen boy’s room