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Aiden's Robots in Space Bedroom
Small Kids, Big Color Entry # 49


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Name: Aiden
Age: 5
Location: San Jose, California

Color Inspiration: My son wants to be a robotic engineer and he told me he wanted a "robots in space" theme. Once I fell in love with the bedding I based the rest of the room around it.

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Color Inspiration continued: I wanted to do something really cool with the walls and decided that since I was using so much color on the rest of the room that I'd make the walls a monotone gradient. After much research online I found out that a smooth gradient would be very difficult so I settled on gradient stripes. They took me a week to do. I also loved the look of some of the children's furniture from true modern but did not love the price, so I improvised adding a bright green background to the expedit from Ikea. It has glow in the dark stars and we "hacked" his malm bed from ikea to include LED night lights.


Tip For Using Color: Life is filled with color - theirs should be too!


Colors Used: The green on the backsplash of the expedit is Behr "Green Crush". The walls are a plethora of custom mixed Glidden paints. The orange is based off of the space bedding collection from boodalee, and the pale blue is as well.


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Small Kids, Big Color 2009

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Comments (36)

Your patience with the stripes paid off -- they look terrific. The floors are gorgeous too, and the whole room looks high end. Very cool!

posted by mere1975 on November 17th 2009 at 10:05am
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Says voting is closed already?

What a nice large room - lucky boy!

posted by seventy7seconds on November 17th 2009 at 10:08am
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wow I love this room!!!! I like what you did with the walls, and the colors just blend in so nicely. Aiden you have a great mommy....

posted by brenda_679 on November 17th 2009 at 10:27am
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I love all the space!

posted by Loki Parker on November 17th 2009 at 10:29am
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I love it! And whoa! This is like looking into my own house! I have a similarly striped dark to light wall as well as use the same chairs (container store?) with a lack-ish table, etc. I really like the room!

posted by Sarah in Nola on November 17th 2009 at 10:29am
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This room is awesome. It is the exact inspiration I needed to finish off my son's future nursery. We are doing a "Science, Industry and Technology" theme. Where did you get the artwork on the hallway (above the robot hooks)? It looks great and I am sure your son is thrilled!

posted by Signe on November 17th 2009 at 10:38am
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I love the room too ! It looks a lot like my 3 year old sons room and we have the same robot and space prints.
They are from ETSY and the seller is johnwgolden.
Here is the link http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=32912128 He has so much other cool art !
Your son's bedroom is so large and well put togerther. It looks great

posted by katyar on November 17th 2009 at 11:33am
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Love, Love, LOVE this room, and kind of want one for myself! The robot hooks are a great touch. Where did you find those?

posted by csc76 on November 17th 2009 at 1:18pm
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I love this room!

Where are the white bins (the ones in the EXPEDIT) from?

posted by Katie K on November 17th 2009 at 2:30pm
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I really like the gears and gradient wallpaper.

posted by jmaple4 on November 17th 2009 at 2:48pm
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Thank you!

The prints are John W. Golden's from Etsy, the robot hooks are from ROMP (and then I painted them to match the room since the metal would have blended into the walls too much), and the storage bins are the strapping storage system from Land of Nod.

posted by mrsdoll on November 17th 2009 at 2:59pm
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Fantastic! I love it. If I just turn everything pink this room would be great inspiration for the room I'm planning for my daughters.

posted by sundarastudio on November 17th 2009 at 4:02pm
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magnifique :)

posted by lulacake on November 17th 2009 at 4:24pm
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I LOVE this room. The walls are perfect. I'm definitely keeping this in mind for my son's bedroom. WINNER!

posted by inkstainedwriter on November 17th 2009 at 4:44pm
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Very cool. The big, wide stripes make the room look so large (or maybe it's the photography, or maybe the room is just really large!). In any case, great job!

posted by heather77 on November 17th 2009 at 4:47pm
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wow. love the stripes.

posted by k8theriver on November 17th 2009 at 4:54pm
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I live in San Jose, too, and that bedroom is really big!

posted by stickyricemama on November 17th 2009 at 6:22pm
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This room is absolutely stunning. The colors are magnificent.

posted by bananatomic on November 17th 2009 at 6:22pm
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The room looks fabulous! what a lucky kid :)

posted by aleshaleigh on November 17th 2009 at 7:22pm
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Did you give him the master bedroom?! This room is HUGE!! And I ADORE it!! Excellent taste, Mom!

posted by lifeinthefortress on November 17th 2009 at 8:15pm
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The room is amazing,What a lucky little boy!The pops of color next to the gradient walls are fabulous.

posted by Cinda on November 17th 2009 at 8:50pm
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Wish I could've had a room like that as a kid! Great job!

posted by WIrving88 on November 17th 2009 at 11:42pm
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Thank you all for your awesome comments & thank you to those who are voting. :D

sundara - I know boodalee makes several girly/pink bedding sets, you could totally run with that idea.

I swear his bedroom isn't as big as it looks, lol. It's still bigger than ours (master) though. The stripes are 18" each.

Responding to an earlier comment; The chairs are from Target.

posted by mrsdoll on November 17th 2009 at 11:51pm
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Wow sis! His room is awesome!! Great job. I like the bed with the lights.

posted by Jeffrey01 on November 18th 2009 at 12:10am
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OH what a great play kitchen! Where did you get it??

posted by mschatelaine on November 18th 2009 at 3:51am
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The play kitchen is from kidkraft. It's mostly wood. Some of the knobs are plastic. I ordered mine through a seller on amazon but I know costco had them for awhile in their stores.

posted by mrsdoll on November 18th 2009 at 10:45am
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i love this room! boys rooms can be so boring sometimes, but this one is so bright and fun! i think the shelving unit is from ikea, correct? i would like to know what you used to back it (the green). and are the drawers (?) at the bottom part of their storage options? or is that what you are saying is from land of nod. i need something like this for my 13 year olds room. thanks!

posted by malcolmsmom on November 18th 2009 at 12:20pm
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Thanks!

malcolmsmom- The shelving unit is the 5x5 Expedit from Ikea. The drawers in the bottom row can also be found in the Expedit series at Ikea. The canvas bins above it (2nd row) are in the strapping storage system at Land of Nod.
The backing on the shelf is luan wood that I cut and painted to screw onto the back of the whole unit. I just used a small roller to paint it before attaching it. When I cut the wood I needed two pieces so I just measured / cut them so that the edges lined up with the backs of the shelf so you wouldn't see the 'seam'.

posted by mrsdoll on November 18th 2009 at 12:55pm
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can you tell me step by step how you did the gradient stripes??? ive read how to do 2 alternating colors...did you have to tape twice? and do you need to pull the tape off while the paint is still wet?

posted by lnp838 on November 18th 2009 at 1:36pm
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It was very very tedious. The hardest part about doing the gradient stripes is picking colors, but once you have those:

1. Tape off crown molding / ceiling and base board / floor. Primer if needed.
2. Measure your "paintable area" (from bottom of molding to top of baseboard / ceiling to floor) and divide that by 5. Mine was 90" so I came up with 18" after dividing.
3. Measure whatever you came up with (mine was 18") down from the ceiling/bottom of molding and put a small dot. Do this every couple feet all the way around the room or across the wall you'd like to paint.
4. Take your first color (the lightest if you're doing a gradient) and paint down about 3" beyond those dots.
5. Wait for paint to dry and measure again, 18" from the top of the ceiling and then double that measurement (I get 36"). Mark a dot at 18" and a dot at 36".
6. Take your tape and tape all the way around the room so that the bottom of the tape hits at the 18" dots.
7. Paint around the room again with your second color making sure to paint about 3" below the 36"(or your second) mark and wait for paint to dry.
8. Repeat until all of your stripes are done.

I hope that make sense! I have quite a few blogs drafted that explain the details in his room further. :)

posted by mrsdoll on November 18th 2009 at 2:04pm
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Beautiful ... can't believe how much room there is.
Nice job.

posted by ruthanna on November 18th 2009 at 3:26pm
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What a lucky guy to have such space to play! I love the green behind the bookcase.

posted by megalega on November 19th 2009 at 3:21pm
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good luck and amazing job!!! you're so darn crafty and talented! :)

posted by russelal on November 19th 2009 at 10:27pm
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i love this room!

posted by elliephant2011 on November 20th 2009 at 1:56am
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What a fabulous room! I love the little activity table. Where did you find it? We have similar furniture for our son and he loves the color green!

posted by kmlw on November 28th 2009 at 2:03pm
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It's actually an Expedit side table from Ikea. :)

posted by mrsdoll on December 9th 2009 at 4:10pm
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