One Room Challenge Fall 2020: Tween Boy Bedroom Week Two

We’re one week into the Fall 2020 One Room Challenge, and our son’s room is starting to transform. This week is all about paint.

If you missed the room reveal, the plan, and all of the before photos, click here for Week 1.

While the baby blue was pretty, he wanted something more grown up. Every surface in this room needed to be painted: ceiling, walls, trim, and even the doors. I didn’t want to buy a whole bunch of paint, so we made our plan based on the colors we had in the garage.

The Ceiling

Luckily, we already had enough ceiling paint. We love this ceiling paint that goes on purple and turns white when it dries. Our ceilings had yellowed over the years, and this room was the last ceiling to be repainted. Just look at the difference in that little corner! This crisp white ceiling is going to make his room so much brighter!

The Walls

For the walls, we decided to use two colors that we had used elsewhere in the house.  He wanted an accent wall to display his lego sets, so we decided on my favorite, Benjamin Moore Hale Navy.  To keep the focus there, we went with BM Decorator’s White.  I had 3 partial cans of Hale Navy in the garage, but we did have to buy a gallon of Decorator’s White for the rest of the walls.

Before painting, I decided to save time and money by priming the three walls that we were going to be painting white. I was afraid the light blue would bleed through. I used my favorite Kilz Premium water-based primer, and did two coats to cover up the blue. By priming two coats, I only had to paint one coat of Decorator’s White.

After painting the walls, I noticed that the baseboards were yellowed. I guess I never painted the baseboards when I painted the room. So I gave all of the trim a quick coat of Decorator’s White using Benjamin Moore’s Advance line. This is the trim paint that I use in the rest of the house, so I always have a can on hand.

Besides new paint tray liners, some of my favorite paint brushes, and roller covers, we only had to buy one gallon of primer and one gallon of paint.

The Doors

The blue doors don’t go with the new paint, so we painted those Benjamin Moore Graphite also in the Advance line. We had more than enough of this paint left over from other projects, so it was free!

The Ceiling Fan

The last thing we did this week was replace the ceiling fan. The fan in this room was really old, loud, and it didn’t provide enough light. We really wanted something that would blend in. We also wanted a light kit with multiple exposed bulbs to provide more light. Finally, we wanted to raise the fan with a shorter down rod. We found this ceiling fan at Lowes that was under $80, and it checked all of the boxes. While there, we also picked up a smart switch for the fan. He didn’t want the long chain hanging down, so this way, we can control the speed with a smartphone or ipad.

Pro parenting tip, we’re probably going to pick up some more of these smart light switches for the room light and the closet light. He likes to leave lights on all of the time, and this way, we can turn them off without going upstairs. We use these switches all over our house. You do need a smarthub to make them work. We use this one.

The Budget

Using leftover paint from the garage saved us about $125. So far, we spent $187 on one can of primer, one can of paint, the ceiling fan & the smart switch.

Now that the room is painted, it’s time to get started on the fun stuff! We bought a bunch of wood, and we’ve gotten started finishing it! I can’t wait to show you what we’re doing! Make sure you’re following along on Instagram. I’m posting Stories there so you can get a sneak peek!

Make sure you stop by the One Room Challenge Blog and check out the latest from all of the other spaces in the challenge. There’s so much inspiration!

That was a lot of painting. I’m so glad its done. What do you think so far? Are you a fan of the color or no? Let me know in the comments!