A week and a half ago, we moved my son into our fourth bedroom upstairs. I needed a blank slate and space to move while completing his room for the One Room Challenge, a design challenge in which hundreds of designers tackle one room in their home for a quick 6-week makeover. This fun design event is hosted by Linda of Calling It Home and Better Homes & Gardens, and it’s such an exciting way to complete rooms in your home. I’ve participated two other times, when I designed our old master bedroom, and more recently when I tackled Arabella’s room.

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We built our custom home and moved in just over a year ago, and we sold almost all of our kids’ furniture when we left the last house, so their rooms have been blank slates in terms of design.

It’s probably from growing up with a design-focused mama, but both of my kids have strong opinions about the design of their rooms, which I think is sort of amazing. 🙂 Kaden loves mid-century modern style. Any time we watch a movie featuring a modern home, he comments on how cool it is. And when given the choice for light fixtures and furniture in his room, he gravitates to clean lines in a mid-century modern style.

While I was up on a ladder installing crown molding over Bella’s built in bookcases for the last One Room Challenge, Kaden came in with a drawing of what he wanted for his bedroom design. I’d tried to talk him into some sort of molding, but he was adamantly against it. He wanted a cool painted black and white design with a black loft bed on a black wall. Excuse the caulk stuck all over his drawing, but I’m so glad I still have this! I thought I’d thrown it, but I actually stuck it on top of Arabella’s built in bookcases.

My first instinct was to resist and try to keep pushing molding on him, but then I reminded myself that it is HIS bedroom, and he should have a say in how it looks. His drawing gave me an idea… Kelly Wearstler’s Channels wallpaper is maybe my favorite ever (either that or Schumacher’s Queen of Spain – both are bold, graphic black and white designs).

While the wallpaper itself is way out of my budget, I’d been contemplating a DIY painted version in our fourth bedroom upstairs… But I had a hunch that Kaden would like this design, and when I showed him a picture of it, his response was, “Wow, that’s COOL.” Sold!

With the wall feature established, we began to look at built in bunk beds. We both thought these from Becki Owens were perfect! You may recall that I’d never attempted any sort of molding before Arabella’s bedroom, and I’ve definitely never built furniture (or anything) from scratch, especially not something my child will sleep on, but I guess tackling new DIY challenges in the name of my One Room Challenge game, so here goes nothing! I wish I could duplicate the ones above, but I’m keeping the design extremely simple, because let’s be honest, I have no clue what I’m doing.

Kaden’s room is a bit of an odd shape/size, at 9’8″ wide and 12’10” long. With the two windows on the longest wall, and a closet door near the entry door, there are only a few options for bed placement. Our original plan was to put his bed along the left wall right when you enter the room (opposite the windows) and make the built in the width of a double mattress even though he likes a twin bed. We were going to include a ladder up into a cutout in between the mattress and the wall and incorporate a built in shelf along that same side to set books on. My boy LOVES to read, so bringing book storage into the design is a necessity.

After rendering the layout, I didn’t love it. Then I discovered that the built in bunk would interfere with his light fixture, which he loves, and I don’t want to mess with electrical, so that option was out. I tried flipping the bed back on a different wall, but it still felt too bulky for the space.

Ultimately, after playing around with various bed plans and floorplans, we’re sticking with a twin bed to preserve floor space, but I do plan to incorporate a book storage feature that was actually a friend’s idea.

The final discussion was the ladder. Kaden was disappointed that we couldn’t make the “in the middle of the bed” ladder work, but understood that it didn’t make sense space wise. One night, I couldn’t sleep, and I laid in bed wracking my brain for ideas on how to give him a cool feature, but still save space… Lightbulb moment = rock climbing wall! As you can see from the layout render above, there is a three foot dead space at the foot of the bed that will be perfect to create a rock climbing wall!

So after all of our brainstorming, this is the final concept board we are working from.

As you can see, there are major gaps in this plan, but as I tried talking through things with Kaden, he wants to see how all of this comes together before making any decisions on accent colors and artwork. I’m trying to let go of control of my kids’ spaces, so I’m honoring that request over my desire to plan everything out. We’ll see how that works in a few weeks! Now I need to get my booty in gear and actually get started on this space. Six weeks (really five) will fly by!

Remember to stop by the One Room Challenge page and check out the progress of other designers and bloggers!