joey's room redo

joey is the only son i've got. this boy is obsessed with sports. primarily baseball. each morning, he will get his chores done quickly so he can either watch "sports center" on espn or check the scores online. yes, it does get annoying. but at least he's got something he loves, right? and it's not a tv show that i hate. so i shouldn't complain.

anyhow, when we moved into the house 2 years ago, his room was just how it looks below - light blue on the top and white on the bottom. there's a white chair rail in between the two colors. there is a built-in bookshelf to the left of the closet - it's yellow. the 'cornice' (wood window topper thingie) was red & white striped with yellow edges. gag. i hated it. but i wasn't sure what i was going to do and how i was going to do it.

 (before picture - isn't it boring?)

finally, i figured out that i wanted to do a baseball theme. i've learned from experience to paint the walls in such a way that the "theme" of the room can be changed without having to repaint. also, i'm kind of ocd - i figure out the paint colors and "theme" ... and then i find all the accessories / decorations. i usually don't do the room until i have everything i need. because i'm particular like that. it's a wee bit scary, but i am how i am, right?

i painted the bottom of his room in a dark navy blue. it took me a bit to figure out what color of blue to do. i wanted something that wasn't a 'baby' blue but was a dark blue. but not too dark. michael tried to have an opinion. yeah, i let him think he had a choice. i had plans of painting the top of the room a creamy color and then using diamondback colors (black, red, cream) but after painting the bottom of the room, i actually liked the top color with the dark blue. that was a surprise. and yes, that was michael's idea. *lol* i'll give him that.

i already had bedding that i loved, so that helped us choose a color. it's a striped comforter with a light denim blue, dark denim blue (small lines), red, and a whitish cream color.

i had been shopping sales at various stores - hobby lobby, michael's, joann's, target. you name it, i was there. i LOVE looking for fun stuff for the walls. i found loads of baseball stuff - i kind of wanted a "vintage" feel but with some modern stuff. but more sepia colored things rather than white. 

i found this wall hanging in the above picture - it's has all the sports teams in the mba on it - a ball with their logo. where the backpack is hanging - that's a really strong hook - we have one for each kid in their bedroom. their backpack ALWAYS goes there and during the school year, the also hang their clothes up for the next day.  helps the mornings go better.

when joey was in kinder, we went to a diamondback's baseball game - we were blessed enough to go into the dugout for batting practice. he has a TON of pictures of him with various d-backs players. the game we went to was the 2nd to last game of joey's favorite player - he was traded to the florida marlins (boo - hiss - we LOVE luis gonzalez). after joey talked to and met luis, luis went into the locker room to get ready for the game. all of a sudden, he came out with his USED BATTING GLOVES to give to joey. they have his germs on them and everything. joey was thrilled. but you can't imagine how disappointed the kid was to not be able to wear the gloves and play baseball with them. so i found a shadow box and mounted them. joey has luis's rookie card somewhere, but i can't find it. i want to put it in the shadow box along with a picture of joey with luis (which is already on the wall - will show you that pic in a second - but a 2nd pic won't hurt).

this is joey's behavior chart. it has seven places for him to go - he starts off on batter up and then can move up (base hit, triple, home run) or move down (foul ball, strike 2, and strike 3. each way he moves has different "consequences" - both good and bad, depending on the way he goes. with foul, it's a "calm down" stage - he has a list of things he can do to help himself change his attitude and actions. so far, it's worked pretty well. i had to make a new rule, tho - if he asks me what base he's on, he moves down one level from where he was. has cut down on him asking me a million times a day.

these are the pictures of joey with various diamondback players. he looks so stinking young in them, doesn't he? from top to bottom, left to right, he is with ... orlando hudson, craig counsel, eric byrnes, johnny estrada, chad tracey, orlando hudson, brandon web, and luis gonzalez. there's a picture of joey with a player named conor jackson (who, incidentally, is the son of the actor who played the colonel on jag). now color jackson is hot - but he's like 12 years old and needs manscaping around the eyebrows. other than that, he's quite pretty. :) but joey didn't want his picture on the wall because he said "mom, you'd be in my room all the time looking at him." *rofl* (can you see the ugly window thingie? i want to paint the striped part a solid red color - but more of a darker red) and paint over the yellow with black.

in his stocking this year, joey got pennants of all the mlb teams - i made mak (my oldest) measure the room and put them evenly on each wall. she is a math wiz and i figured it'd keep her busy for a bit. *lol* on the left of the picture is a wall hanging (again - kind of vintage) and a hat hanger thingie. he has way too many hats. he has two asu sun devil hats. we are big sun devil fans.  

more pennants. i have a wall hanging above joey's pictures of himself playing baseball that says "eat. sleep. play ball." that describes this boy to a t. the fish tank is on top of the bookcase - it's still yellow. i need to move the fish tank when we clean it so i can paint it a red color. or black.

a close-up of joey's pictures - him playing t-ball.

joey's closet with the behavior chart on it. the rule is that if i find him not changing his base (especially below "batter up", the chart goes out into the family room - which is not what joey wants. he wants it "private" in his bedroom. makes sense, i guess.

and that's the tour of the boy's room! :) i love it - we put it together without him in there and surprised him with it. he was quite thrilled.