Boys’ Bedroom Design by Eclectic Street

Welcome back to the next in my series of summer guest posts. Today I am thrilled to have Sam from Eclectic Street here sharing her design for her boys’ bedroom. This is absolutely an idea you need to see. Enjoy!

When it comes to designing boys bedrooms there is a void of inspiration and not much beyond cartoon character filled walls and bed spreads. So when the time came to moving my 2 boys into the same room, I had three concerns ‘bunk beds’, ‘design’ and “am I mad for letting them share!’

The bedroom is a standard double, so to have two normal floor standing beds would just suck up the floor space and leave no room to manoeuvre. If only we had the power to push the walls out to make rooms bigger! There was only one thing for it BUNK BEDS, you hear a ‘sigh’ from me and in the background you hear happy ‘cheers’ from the boys.

I have never been a fan of bunk beds for a number of reasons and I won’t bore you with the details as its just one of those things. So my challenge was set, to find a design that I liked. I eventually found a design, that offered a great space for both boys and looked pretty darn cool. The only thing was, the bunk bed that I had fallen for, was bespoke. ‘Bespoke’ translated is ‘loads of money’ and my tiny budget would not stretch to a Professional Joiner…

So I came up with a hack, an Ikea hack and roped my Dad into being the Master Hack Builder. The bed frames are Mydal from Ikea and the extra wood needed to complete the look came from Wickes (don’t forget strong fixings to attach the frames to the wall).  All in all the beds took a day to construct at a cost of £170 and dare I say it, my Dad is one top guy (got to keep him sweet for the next job). Just incase your slightly concerned about the strength of the top bunk. The bed has been fully tested and passed all safety procedures, pulled on, swinged on and bounced upon by two sturdy men. (The Dad and the Husband)

My second concern is what should the look/design be, Football, Minnons, a computer gamers paradise!

If you ask any child what they would like in their room I’m sure many would say a theme or cartoon character but because I have two sharing, there would have been a conflict of interest and colour. To try to marry both together would have ended up with the bedroom looking like a soft play centre.  So I throw the ‘blue for Chelsea’ and ‘Reds my favourite colour’ right out the window and went for a simple colour palette of monochrome, with natural wood, black painted furniture and splashes of colour.

The boys feature wall was inspired by an image I saw on instagram and was the perfect look…simple black shapes with an 80s vibe. So out came the paint and off I went free styling on the wall. The boys were very intrigued to see mummy painting on their wall and bless, did ask if they could help…I think you know that I swerved their attention away from that.

With a lot of the stuff in the room I did get creative, you have to when your on budget. Sometimes this can be a positive as I don’t think I would have done half the stuff had I had the money tree in the garden and the ability to go wild in the aisles.

The main purpose was to create individual spaces for the boys and include a shared space (if that makes sense), the eldest had the the top bunk and the youngest had the bottom. One was ‘king of the castle’ and the other had a den like no other. I think I worked through my concerns apart from one, Yes I am mad for letting them share ‘as boys will boys’ but I wouldn’t want it any other way.

Small print –  No mummy was harmed in the making of beds, Mummy reserves the rights to allocate these tasks to the boys, it’s character building after all! 

stool (painted the legs) Ikea | ladder shelf, Sue Ryder | nothing to see here print, soo-uk.com | bedlinen, made.com | bedside table, La Redoute | bedside light, made.com | rug, Ikea | wolley hat lion and black line print were done by me | wall paint, Dulux Vintage Chandelier | giraffe print (I added the tie and the glasses) allposters.co.uk | balloon dog, Redcandy | festoon lights, Festivelightsltd | chips/burger/hotdog cushion, Lovefrankie | wooden letters made by my dad

Drawing courtesy of the talented Malcolm Begg @designsixtynine

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I go by the name of eclectic street on Instagram and my name is Sam.

At present living in Nottingham and I work part time as a freelance Interior Designer while holding the fort at home looking after 2 energetic boys.  Before having children I had a vibrant and thrilling career in Film and Television as an Art Director / Standby Art Director. (I still dip into now and again)

I have a love for all interior genres but for me I always gravitate towards modern, clean lines with a strong graphic effluence. I’m a creative soul and love being inspired.