Beach Room Makeover

Beach themed room by Bella Tucker Decorative Finishes

My friends on Facebook think I am a slave driver. I post a ton of pictures of projects we are working on around the house on Facebook and Instagram. I would like to use this public forum to proclaim the following: “Brooks Tucker is a willing participant in all of the makeover mayhem and often the instigator”. He walks through our house daily saying, “We need a new so and so. We need to get rid of this or that. That carpet/paint color/ceiling looks like we live in the slums”. Mostly, my job is to come up with an economical and aesthetic way to makeover these spaces he has deemed “unworthy of belonging in our home.” So, my wheels are always spinning.

I have often said that interior design is our therapy. Raising two children with autism and running two thriving business , it is nice to take a creative break in the routine to be able to design new spaces. We are slowly moving through our house room by room updating the finishes to make the rooms feel like “ours”. We have been in our new home for a year and a half and I am very happy with the progress we have made. We have updated our kitchen, painted our bathroom vanities, updated our stairs, our fireplace, and our basement bedroom. Next on the list was our son’s bedroom. Zane has non-verbal autism. That means he can’t communicate with spoken words. Over the last couple of years he has had a HUGE communication break through using the iPad and an app called Proloquo 2 Go. It has literally changed our lives. He can type or show us pictures of his wants and needs. One recurring theme for Zane is the beach. He spends hours looking at photos of himself on the beach, typing phrases like “swim at the beach”, “Seagrove beach Florida”, and “hotels in Florida”. So, it was a no-brainer on deciding what type of room we would be designing for Zane.

Zane’s room before was a hodgepodge of bunk beds, left over furniture and green walls faux painted by the previous owner.

Before and After Room Makeover by Bella Tucker Decorative Finishes

The room is small, so the previous owners had a desk built in under the window.

Built in desk under the window

Upgrading to a bigger bed meant not having room for side tables. We repurposed the corner shelves that were part of an entertainment center that we didn’t have room for in our basement. They fit perfectly.

Corner bookcases used instead of night stands is a great idea in a small bedroom. Bella Tucker Decorative Finishes

We had wall sconces installed on either side of the bed on our new wood headboard wall. The wall is made of discount tongue and groove flooring that we got for FREE from a friend. I saw her post a picture of a wood wall she did in her son’s room and I asked her about it. She offered the left over wood to me. Can you believe we had exactly enough wood to cover our wall?

Brooks painstakingly hammered each and every nail and installed the wall in about a day and a half.

Installing wood wall using tongue and groove flooring

He painted the other three walls Blue Hubbard by Martha Stewart from Sherwin Williams. He painted the desk in Annie Sloan Chalk Paint in Provence and stenciled the numbers in Old White. Here is a short Instagram video of the stencil painting.

He also dry brushed the closet doors with Annie Sloan Chalk Paint in Duck Egg Blue to give them a weathered look.

We painted a weather paint finished on the closet doors

We created the “Zane’s Beach” sign by painting an old wood tray in Florence by Annie Sloan Chalk Paint and gluing on wood letters.

home made beach sign

The ship art over the bed is a thrift store find. I originally bought it for $8 thinking I would re-use the frame, but the colors and subject matter worked perfectly in the room.

Beach themed room by Bella Tucker Decorative Finishes

The bedding and the ceiling light are from Overstock. The sconces are from Lowes. The pendant light over the desk was made from an IKEA light kit and a vintage minnow bucket.

painted desk by Bella Tucker Decorative Finishes

Future plans are to paint an old rusty iron headboard and to find a frame to go around our wall word art. We are also considering painting the wood wall in a treatment like this: Photo Source