We have certainly come a long way from making a “tree hut kids bed” that wasn’t enough nice enough to put in the backyard on The Block NZ Season 2!

Putting together a child’s room brings out your inner child – though for Caleb and I we have never struggled with that! We love playing with our soon to be 2 year old and designing him a new room gave us an opportunity to get creative and create him (and us) a fun environment.

Our biggest challenge with this room was it's small size and lack of wall space due to windows on 2 walls and doors on the other 2 walls. It meant if we put in a single bed, there would be minimal room for any other furniture. Instead we opted for a toddler bed which is 165cm long and 75cm wide. I found a simple pine toddler bed on Trademe for $150.00 including a mattress and then we decided to custom make a headboard. My design was simple a black tepee with ply backing - all up costing around $70.00 for wood and paint, so an affordable option. Against the white wall with black wall decals, the bed just looks stunning. More than that – Alek loves it! I find him sitting on his bed to read or play with his teddies, it’s become his special place within our home – which I think is a parenting win! The sheet set was brought from Kmart, the Mountain Blanket and Adventurer Pillowcase is from Cheeky Raskal. The Panda accessories are from Kids Caravan. The little log I found a few months back when we were on holiday, which I have been drying out in our garage.

With the other elements of furniture and décor I wanted to create spaces for Alek to use, this is why I love the OYOY adventure rug by OYOY designs brought from Kids Caravan, as it functions are a rug and a play space. I also wanted to have storage Alek could access his toys and have a place for us to sit with him in his room. I took the cubed the storage unit brought from Akia and created a window seat. Making the cushion was simple enough - I took an old foam mattress and cut it to size, wrapped it in material and pinned it together in the right shape, then using upholstery twine and a large needle sowed it all together. Again an affordable option, with my only expense being the material which had 40% off within a Spotlight sale. I went for an Aztec style fabric to fit in with the teepee theme and to colour match the rug. The cushions on the seat are from Kmart.

Finally for wall decorations, I wanted something that would bring the space all together and create the theme of a monochrome adventurers room. I found the two flags from Kmart for $9.00 and made my own wall hooks. Caleb cut 2 pieces of a branch and I used a velcro wall mount to attach in to the wall. I found this adorable print called “Happy Mountain” from Kids Caravan and put it in a A3 frame from Spotlight. Finally I brought geometric triangle wall decals from Cheeky Raskal to create a feature wall playing off the angles created by the mountains, the teepee bedhead and the arrows within the rooms décor.