Josh's Jungle Room Makeover

20 months later, my monkey's room is finally finished!

I gave you a little glimpse here, 
but I thought I'd give you the full tour.

Here's the name sign on the door painted on discarded wood.
These are super easy to make.

Since our decorating budget is limited to about $20 (max),

I recycled things I had laying around the house.

In fact, I didn't buy one single thing to make Josh's room 

the jungle that I wanted it to be.

I love what I'm learning by being on a budget.

I'm learning: You can do anything. 

You can make anything you want.

With a little imagination and duct tape and a glue gun.

That expensive wall piece from Pottery Barn?

That $1000 headboard?

You don't have to go with out.

You can actually make these things! 

And, while it's painful at the time, in the end,

it's so satisfying.

yay me.

We have a 3 bedroom house, 

so here's how Josh's room started:

(as my studio)

I thought the boys could share a room until I 

realized that we all needed to sleep at some point in our lives, 

so we moved Joshy into the studio.
And I moved my studio (mostly) into the garage

The funky paint squares? I created these in my studio
when I found out I could decorate it any crazy way that I wanted.

I used what I had:

gesso & acrylic paint.

(it worked!) 

I applied the paint with squashed up
paper towels to give it a rough look.

So when we moved Josh in he inherited my crazy squares and  a lot of holes in the wall.

I was going to just paint over them, but I couldn't find the
original color & I didn't want to spend $30 (or more) at the paint store.

So that's how Josh's room became a jungle. 

I used a big paint brush & paper towels to apply acrylic craft paint to the wall.

There were a bunch of spackling spots on the wall

so I extended the jungle to cover them.

Then I included one of my favorite all time 

quotes from Where the Wild Things Are.

We say this to each other all the time.

The idea for the canvases came when I decided to 

stop doing art fairs & shows. forever. 

(wahoo.)

I had 8 huge pieces of painted wanescoting from my set up
that I chopped up to make canvases for the jungle animals.
Then I drilled two holes in each hung them with a rope.

I painted a simple little jungle animal on each one.

The curtains (orginally for my studio)were recycled from our master bedroom. 

They were floor length when I got them from  Ikea, 

so I trimmed them up and added some fabric scraps to them to add a little color. 

I'll make a little tutorial if anyone is interested. It was super easy.

I also added this "You are so loved!" banner to the crib.

This little canvas hanging is one of the first things I 

made for Jack's room when I started painting.

I love this little desk I picked up at a second hand shop & painted.
I painted the lampshade with acrylics.

That's it!
Thank you for stopping by.
Making a unique space to live in doesn't have to break the bank.
It just takes a little creativity. And time. And patience.