*CTSB* - Boy's Builder Bedroom - liZ from Simple Simon and Co.

It's almost the end of Cure the Summertime Blues!  I'll tell you what would cure my summertime blues - having all of these stinkin boxes out of my house!!!  We have a PODS coming today so we can start that process, but I'm soooooo ready for it to be over!  I'm also ready to get back to crafting/sewing - I'm having withdrawls and it's making me cranky.  Anyway...for those of you who can decorate, today we have liz from Simple Simon and co. - she is sharing an update to her son's bedroom - it turned out really cute. 

Take it away liz!

Hi! I'm liz from over at Simple Simon and Co. There my super talented sister-in-law (who's name is also Elizabeth) post our daily projects, ideas, tutorials, and adventures in homemaking. But today we are so excited to be here at Sew Home Grown. We "met" Jessica awhile ago and have loved her and her blog ever since.

This past week our cure for the summer time blues was to spend an afternoon indoors. We opened the windows, turned on some music, and did an afternoon bedroom remodel. (Ok. SO, it wasn't a total remodel...it was more like an update.)

Recently we let Simon (our soon to be 1st grader) choose a paint color for one wall in his room. He chose his favorite color, grass green. It's a little loud but it's his room so we went with it. Then my husband built him some much needed shelves to display all his "good stuff" on. This is how it turned out:

Simon loved it and has already rearranged the shelves several times. However, the rest of his room was still decorated in semi-cowboy gear. Including a wall with red and brown stripes. Which wasn't working with his idea of a builder/inventor room. So on this particular afternoon we decided to change things up.

We started by "dirtying up" the stripes and adding a green one to match the green wall.

To do this we taped off the new stripe and painted it in a solid green. Easy enough.

As for the dirtying of the stripes I just did an average dry brush technique---dip your dry brush into a little dab of paint (I used bottled acrylic paints that can be found at any craft store) and brush it onto the paint in random areas.

The colors I brushed over the top of the stripes were a darker shade of green, a darker shade of red, a medium brown, and a yellow.

When the paint dried I went over the top of each stripe with a coat of gloss and pulled off the tape. (The tape is great but I have those dang orange peel walls so the lines weren't perfectly crisp---something that bugs me so after removing the tape I touched up any under the tape paint leaks with white paint.)

Meanwhile the kids were having a movie party on the mattress and bedding removed from the bedroom.

(They "needed" a rest. They spent the first half of the afternoon armed with baby wipes to clean bedroom baseboards and Magic Erasers to wipe off any scuff marks on the walls. It sounds lame but the kids had fun cleaning while I painted and then had fun again lounging around in the family room while I finished up with the gloss and touch ups.)

Finally we added a much anticipated element to the top stripe---Simon's name painted and designed by Simon himself.

For this project we spread the letters (found at any craft store---they even sell similar ones at Wal-Mart) out on the grass and turned him loose with the black spray paint. He covered them thoroughly and they dried quickly in the hot sun. Then before hanging them I ran the sander quickly over the edges. Black letters done.

As for the letter M. Simon wanted it to be "metal" so we sprayed it with aluminum colored spray paint and then turned him loose with a bowl of glue and a bucket of random nuts and bolts. This is what he came up with.

In the end his wall looked like this. It is still a little bare for my liking however his new aluminum colored bunk bed is supposed to be here Friday and will go on this wall (I hoped it would be here before this post.) and fit nicely just beneath the green stripe. Meanwhile I'm on the lookout for something cool to hang, paint, or string across the remaining empty space.

So, how do we cure the summer time blues? By washing, taping, painting, and spraying of course! Then by the time we're done we need more of that summer vacation. (Just kidding, but that's really what we did. And are going to do it again next week when we turn Gracie's room back into a nursery for the new baby.)

Thanks again Jessica for letting us spend part of our summer here with you! We were so happy to be invited!

-liZ