Setting Up Our Son’s “Big Boy” Room

Our son Palmer turned 2 in May and welcomed his baby brother, Winston, at the beginning of August! We decided to keep the nursery as is for our new baby and transform our guest bedroom into Palmer’s “big boy” room. Here’s how we set it up:

Paint

This room has always felt cozy, so we opted to add a relaxing brightness to the walls using this soft green paint. We’ve always loved the charming shelves that came with the house, but felt the darker walnut made the room feel smaller, so we decided to paint them white to lighten up the room!

Furnishings

To keep the space adaptable in case the boys end up sharing this room in the future, we went with a low profile twin size bed dressed with a natural linen duvet and sham,  boxer plaid sheet set, leather long lumbar pillow and a throw blanket. I love the look of plaid in kids’ rooms, which you will see incorporated throughout the design. We are using bumpers to avoid any falls as Palmer transitions to his big boy bed! 

We flanked the bed with two nightstands accompanied by fluted ceramic lamps adding much needed light to this cozy room. The natural seagrass pendant light we chose highlights the curved architecture of the ceiling and looks especially beautiful at night.

We knew the space needed a rug and were so excited to find this soft rug on sale! We added a rug pad for some extra cushion.

Kids’ rooms can become cluttered quickly, so I decided to keep the exposed shelves very simple using styling items I already owned. We used wooden toys, books and a clock, which is a must for me in the kids’ rooms to help me keep track of time without needing my phone in the room.

I’ve been obsessed with this leather bean bag chair and thought it would be the perfect chair to create a reading nook in this corner. We added a plaid pillow, pouf, and custom radiator cover to finish off this corner.

On the left side we added a natural woven storage bench to create additional storage for blankets and tie in the texture from the woven pendant light.

A small dresser fit perfectly in this alcove and we are using our Horderly expandable bamboo drawer dividers which are a must for really any drawers – but especially for kids! 

We loved the floating book ledges we used in the nursery, so we maximized the vertical space between the closet and dresser using two white ledges for books. 

We finished off the space with these adorable golf pictures in wooden frames to bring an element of whimsy to the space.

Closet Organization

This room has two small closets that we outfitted with our favorite Elfa system! In the left closet, we organized all of Palmer’s things. We used the Elfa door racks to store shoes to grow into and personal care categories including mouth care, hair care, medicines, and hats. Inside the closet we have a short hanging bar for his hanging clothes accompanied by our Horderly felt baskets to store clothes to grow into, swim, and extra linens for his bed. Keeping clothing sizes labeled is essential for minimizing mental labor with a quickly growing toddler, so we are using our acrylic bin clip labels to label each basket.

We are using the right closet as our multipurpose closet since our home has limited storage space.This closet houses guest and back stock items like Palmer’s diapers, toilet paper, towels, extra primary bedroom linens, guest linens, air mattresses, items for our in-laws when they come to visit and long hang for my dresses.

Safety

When it comes to cord management and safety, we use a Google Nest camera, so we can watch the app on our phones when we’re away, and this split screen monitor when we want to watch both boys at the same time. We didn’t want to drill holes into the shelves to hide the cords, so we ended up stapling the cords down the wall and using this wall cable channel to cover the cord below.

We are so happy with how Palmer’s room turned out and can’t wait to welcome our newest family member into the nursery that served us so well as first time parents. If you or someone you know are struggling with organizing your space, feel free to reach out to us! We offer both in-person and virtual organizing sessions to tackle your toughest spaces with ease.

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