When we found out we were pregnant with our second baby I knew a big boy room was in store. The nursery is connected to our master bedroom and functions perfectly so I knew it would pretty much stay the same and Ellis would be moving into his own big boy room.

It took several months to collect the main pieces of furniture. The dresser and lockers were both purchased early and were really rough to begin with. I had been looking for a low mid century dresser for over a year. When I finally spotted this guy at the thrift store I literally jumped for joy and ran across the store to claim it.

I also had to give up my office for the big boy room, which was fine since I was going from being a work-from-home mom to a stay-at-home mom.

After I moved all of my things out we painted EVERYTHING in the room white since it is in the north corner of the house and it can feel dark. We weren’t going to do a theme other than things Ellis loves, which turned out to include tractors, boats, vehicles and animals. I was really drawn to a black and white pallet, but knew that realistically I couldn’t edit all color out of a kid’s room. Ellis has some colorful sentimental items (like his original Little Nemo comic strip, giant letter ‘E’, and the blue twin sized blanket I knit for him when he was cooking) that were going to be in his room too. Deep green and navy blue kept popping up so we went with that. And a ton of wood, which I really like too.

Once we painted the lockers blue and added shelves and rehabbed the dresser and fixed the broken drawers the room was complete enough for Ellis to move in June. This is what it looked like back in June.

Since then he has lived into the room some and we have made little tweeks to make it more functional (added a little shelf for his water cup, moved the rocking chair closer to his bed). Function was the most important aspect of the room. I get great satisfaction when things work well. Ellis’ toys and clothes needed to be accessible to him. He also needed to have a light that he could operate from his bed, but not break. Safety comes first here so everything is bolted to the wall or the floor. We are anchoring fanatics in this house.

More is more is my general feeling about decorating (check out the background of our picture on the About the Mama’s page if you need a visual of what that looks like), but I really tried to edit and stay minimal in this room. Things have slowly crept back into the space, but with all of the closed storage (thank you lockers) it is managing to keep a clean look.

Last week I finally found the final piece of the puzzle. This amazing vintage Turkish mohair rug (for $45!!!!). I am a terrible online shopper and paying full price is against my religion so I pretty much have to wait until the perfect thing turns up at the thrift store. And it finally did. I have been waiting to try a layered rug look for ages and this is the perfect spot to try that out since it is so slippery and shaggy. I think it is just what this room needed to bring it all together.

How does your space typically come together? Do you hunt down the right piece to complete your vision when decorating, or wait for it to turn up even if it takes months or years?