He said he didn't want white paint. He said he HAD to have color, no... not just color but rainbows. So with a little imagiantion and a lot of work we pulled it off.
Zach picked out the tie dye swirl bedspread after hours of searching and viewing every "rainbow" bedding set we could find online (this one came from amazon). The white paint not only went over the previously white yet faded parts of the room, but we painted the wood veneer around the closet and vanity area white too. The wood veneer looked terrible and rather than rip it out and replace it, this seemed like a way to make an aesthetic fix while giving the little room more light. But... the color quest doesn't end at the bedspread. We also took the doors of each of his two storage cubbies and his closet and painted them each in a different colored chalkboard paint.
The boy is SO happy with this chalkboards. Now his endless need to draw can be satisfied even while getting dressed, going to sleep, or listening to audio books. Speaking of which... we dicthed his clunky old freecycled boom box and installed a proper little stereo system into the wall. Now he has more bed space to stretch out and still gets his music and stories when he wants them.
And finally the centerpiece of the room. Remember those ceiling panels you saw him unscrewing in my
"moment" last week? We took those over to the fine folks at
Maritime Plastics here in town and told them our vision. A week later they recreated the ceiling panels in a frosted acrylic and Doug installed these behind them.
Oh yes, a strip of multi-colored LED lights that are (ready for this?) remote controlled!
(the little remote lives in this paper bowl he made, but we're thinking of a "leash" for it in the room somehow so it doesn't accidentally disappear like so many other little things.)
I REALLY wanted to post a little video clip of Zach demonstrating all of the crazy settings these lights can do including a settting that is audio sensitive and will pulse to the music, but I can not for the life of me figure out how to get the darn video out of his little camera and into my computer. So still photos will have to do for now.
And here's the real headline for the new room... he loves it. In fact he loves it so much he is happily sleeping in there all night every night so far with no complaints or problems. Of course, now that his room is so cool, I kind of want to sleep there too. :)
p.s. I am fiddling with the "intense debate" comment widgit. forgive me if you are having trouble commenting or if you can not see your past comments. The idea is to be able to answer more directly to comments and questions, but since I am tech challenged it's slow going getting this all working right.
