We have lived in our current house for over 2 years and I am just now getting around to decorating the boys’ rooms! I typically have a pretty good idea of what I would like to do, but their rooms have been difficult. As pre-teens and teens I need their decor to last until they move out for college!
For my youngest, we decided to do a sports theme room, but I am not one to put Fatheads on the walls or decorate around a particular team. Instead, I have been collecting vintage sports stuff for the past year or so. I’d hit up garage sales, Goodwill, antique shops or vintage marketplaces. I was pretty particular about finding things at a really good price, so it took a while to gather enough items to fill the industrial shelves!
Vintage Sports Theme Kid’s Room
Here’s a little before pic:
Thanks to Pinterest, I had plenty of inspiration! I came across these AWESOME industrial shelves from Beneath My Heart. I grabbed her directions and made a plan that would fit Boy #3’s room layout.
I learned a few things along the way…The plumbing pipes are expensive! Menard’s pipes were much cheaper than Lowe’s, but Menard’s did not have wood that was deep enough, soI had to purchase the lumber from Lowe’s! Lowe’s actually cut the lumber to the exact lengths I needed…that saved me a step! Thankfully, my super-handy dad has a drill press and drilled all the holes in the wood!
Once the wood was cut, I did a quick stain…just one coat was all it took. Because the room is gray, I wanted a hit of gray to the wood. I mixed together some brown stain, gray paint and a bit of water (no measuring!) to make a wash. I grabbed a rag and rubbed the wash on. Forty minutes later I had all of the wood stained. I let them set over night to dry before starting assembly.
I put as many of the plumbing pipes that I could together before I called the boys in to help assemble.
Then, starting from the bottom up, we assembled layer by layer. These shelves get heavy, so having some extra help is great!
Once everything was assembled, it took 3 of us to lift it up to the wall! We used 50# metal drywall anchors to attach the flanges to the wall at the top of the shelves. I was planning to screw the flanges and the bottom of the shelves into the floor, through the carpet, but the shelf was very firmly attached at the top so we ended up not doing anything at the bottom. If you have younger kids who might decide it would be fun to climb up the shelves, I would suggest screwing the feet of the shelves to the floor as well!
We are loving how it turned out!
I tried to gather all sorts of items, I used this Pottery Barn frame in Boy #3’s room when he was a baby–so glad I kept it around. This is one of my favorite things on the wall–it’s a picture of my dad’s baseball team from when he was a kid! My uncle was also on the team and my grandpa was the coach (see him on the right?!?!)
I bought the University Ave. Sign from Pottery Barn Teen on clearance almost 2 years ago, with the intention of using it in this room! The letter jacket I dug out of the basement–it’s my husband’s from junior high!
And we FINALLY have a place for all the trophies, yeah!
For some reason Boy #3 always asks for plants in his room…he does pretty good taking care of them, except his little terrarium needs some help! Because it doesn’t need water every week, he forgets when it does need water! Life’s little lessons.
I couldn’t quite get him to get rid of the giraffe (non-sports!) pillow…but at least it’s red!
