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While my almost-13 year old was at camp, I decided to give his room a mini-makeover. Before you judge me (😂), I didn’t plan to get rid of anything… just, shall I say, rearrange how he had things displayed.

My son is a collector of many things, and he likes to have everything out and displayed. Stickers, he puts randomly on his wall. Sports Illustrated for Kids posters…. Taped on the wall, randomly. Baseball cards everywhere. Trinkets, souvenirs, etc all displayed on his counters. He even has all of his school pictures taped in order on his wall.

I wanted to streamline things- give him places to actually hang things on the wall, and give him organizing tools to help keep his room tidy. Let me tell you about what I did.

I will go section by section, so you can see direct before and afters and what I did.

Angle 1:

Here, I painted two thin cork boards the same color as the wall. I hung them above his window with nails, and then I put a bunch of his pictures on them. **These cork boards are peel and stick, but I didn’t want to ruin the walls so I decided to nail them up instead!

I also put his Coke piggy bank under his desk, and I put his sports cards in bins that can be stored under the bed.

Angle 2:

Here, I painted three of the thin cork boards (like above) and nailed them above the window. I put two SI posters and another item from his basketball team on these boards. I cleaned off his desk and organized the little shelf above it.

Angle 3:

I feel like the after almost seems more cluttered than before, but I’m okay with it. I did a lot here. First, I repainted his dresser. His drawers’ paint was rough looking, so I repainted it another gray that we had on-hand. I also repainted the top with a close blue shade we had on-hand.

I ordered new drawer pulls and installed them. These are plastic and very inexpensive… great for a boy’s room.

I used these sturdy card holders to prop up his favorite cards on his dresser. Before, he just leaned them against the mirror.

I painted two more cork boards– this time, longer ones. I put one on either side of the mirror.

I bought these thin cork strips and painted them the wall color. They absorbed the paint like crazy, so this is after 4 coats and it still wasn’t great. I nailed these into the wall and put his school pictures in order on them. (These were also peel-and-stick)

I added items to his little picture mural wall that didn’t fit anywhere else. I used a couple of the cork boards that I didn’t paint to put his random stickers, pictures, etc.

Angle 4:

Here, I moved the flags to above his two doors. He wanted his new sports ring cabinet put where his baseball cabinet was, so we had to patch up some holes and repaint, then move them to where he wanted them.

I also repainted just the top of his nightstand, to match the bigger dresser.

I also propped up his baseball cards with the sturdy card holders.

Angle 5:

Here, you can see that we removed the top trophy shelf and replaced it with his baseball cabinet. This angle isn’t quite as exciting! 😉

Angle 6:

My son loves playing basketball on his mini goal. I’m talking full out driving to the basketball and/or dunking. He’s very serious about it! His ball marked up his white door on the inside pretty badly. (Zoom in for more detail) This was an easy fix- white paint!

Angle 7:

The only thing I did to this wall- besides touch up paint from said basketball games- was replace his net with a mini glow-in-the-dark net! It’s so fun!

I hope he likes it… I feel like I’m still supporting his collections while guiding him a bit more on where to put things. 😉 hopefully he will feel the same!