And we're back with Part 2 of Tre's bedroom makeover and pretty excited about the final result!  In fact, my husband and I might even be a little bit jealous that it's not our room.  If you need a review of Part 1 of the makeover, click here.
 
As we touched on in Part 1, Tre's room is quite small (about 9.5' x 9.5') and seemed to become even smaller once we added a full size bed to the middle of it.  We inevitably needed to come up with some solutions for furniture and storage that would not take up too much more space in the room and that would make the room feel larger.  Here's five ways that we did it:
  • Elevated the Ceiling.  Okay, we didn't literally elevate the ceiling, but we did provide the optical illusion of a higher ceiling by doing two things.  The first thing we did during Part 1 of the makeover was to install wood slats to create an accent wall.  The slats provide a vertical line that draws your eye up to the ceiling and therefore makes the room seem taller.  Another way we did this was by installing the window treatments as close to the ceiling as possible.  The actual top of the window is about a foot lower than the ceiling, but by installing the treatment as high as possible, it both makes the window seem larger and draws your attention up creating more visual space at a higher level.

  • Installed "floating" furniture directly to the wall.  Once we had the slats installed, we created a wall unit of sorts by installing a floating desk, shelves, and a nightstand directly to the wall.  I'm so lucky to have a dad that can build anything so he helped us out with the construction.  He always does an amazing job and goes above and beyond what I expect him to do.  Thanks, Dad!  The desk, shelves, and nightstand are all 2' long.  It seems small for a desk, but Tre usually does most of his work for school on his laptop so he really doesn't need much more room than that.  It should work well for him for now.  Having the furniture installed directly to the wall keeps it off the floor and therefore allows more space for travelling around the room.
  • Eliminated traditional bedroom furniture that he no longer needed and put it in unconventional places.  As I mentioned in Part 1, we purchased this bed from Ikea, which was a good fit for this room because it has drawers in the bottom.  This made it easy to get rid of his dresser and to reduce the number of pieces taking up valuable floor space.  The drawers in this bed are great because they are very large and actually provide a lot more room than his previous four-drawer tall boy dresser.  Not pictured in these photos is his closet.  It is a long closet with two sliding doors on it.  We decided to put the closet to an unconventional use by installing a shorter bookcase that houses all of his books in one side of the closet.  He also has a fish tank on top of the bookcase, which obviously requires natural light at times, so we took the door off of this side.  We left the door on the other side so he has a place to hide his hanging clothes, shoes, and laundry hamper along with the inevitable mess that can happen in a closet regardless of the age of the owner 😊.  

  • Used baskets and containers to store all of the little stuff away.  As you can see, we also kept one bookcase in the corner.  Tre's got a lot of framed photos, books, and trinkets, so he needed a place to store them.  I purchased a few baskets so that all of his doodads and thingamabobs could easily be corralled.  In a small room, it's very important to keep small things hidden away or else the space becomes quickly cluttered.
I styled the bookcase for him when he was gone at his mom's house for a few days so I wasn't sure how he was going to feel about me adding in some of his kid stuff like his batman piggy bank and stuffed puppy that used to be his dad's when he was a kid.  He hasn't mentioned it yet, so I think he's okay with it.  Both the bookcase and this surfboard were in his room pre-makeover.  The surfboard is actually a shelf that used to be mounted on his wall, but we thought it looked cooler standing like this on the floor. 
Baskets, baskets, and more baskets are the way to keep it looking organized, even if it's not.  The big basket on the floor has all of his stuffed animals in it.   The baskets in his floating nightstand house extra masks, phone chargers, his wallet, etc.  
  • Installed wall sconces instead of table and/or floor lamps.   In another effort to maximize usable space, we kept the lighting off of the desk and nightstand.  Table lamps are always a given for me, but there just isn't room to put them on these valuable surfaces in this instance.  The wall sconce closest to the desk performs double duty by providing reading light when he's in bed or also when he's working at his desk.
To style the room, I got him bright white new bedding to offset the dark green walls.  Of course I also used a throw pillow from my shop!  The "Eat, Sleep, Game, Repeat" art is Tre's favorite and he got really excited when he saw that I got it for him.  He's like any other kid his age and is completely obsessed with video games.
Neil and I were originally thinking that we might surprise Tre with a flat screen TV for this wall.  In the past, we've been seriously against tv's in the kids' rooms.  However, we thought it would be a nice treat for him given the tough year that he's had to deal with.  We quickly reassessed this idea, though, based on the amount of time he wants to spend on his tablet and decided he has plenty of screen time without adding a TV to the mix. We therefore kept this world map that he had before the makeover, which is actually quite special because one of our very good family friends gifted it to Tre when he was little and then my dad made this beautiful hanger for it.

Just to refresh our memory, this is what the room looked like before...
And this is what it looks like now...
Tre seems to be happy with it and that's all that really matters.  (Our cat, Kenji, seems to approve of the room, too!)  Tre's about to turn 13 in April, which oh my gosh, makes me want to cry.  He's at the age now where all he wants to do is hang out in his room with the door closed.  I remember being that way when I was in my teens.  Hopefully he still loves us for a few years longer.  Maybe making over his room will help prolong that time a little longer.  😄  
If there's ever a chance that you read this, Tre, your dad and I love you so much!

See links below for sources!

Ceiling light fixture:  Amazon
Wall Sconces:  Amazon
Bed with Drawers:  Ikea
Etsy Video Game Downloadable Prints:  "Eat, Sleep, Game, Repeat" & Xbox Console
Duvet Cover:  Amazon
Bed Sheets:  Target
Cloth Baskets:  Home Goods
Small navy blue baskets:  Ikea
Green metal desk container:  Ikea
Runner Rug:  Target
Paint:  "Retreat" by Sherwin Williams 
Turkish Kilim Pillow:  Velvet & Shag
Roman Shade:  Select Blinds (Color is Nautical Navy)
Shelf Brackets:  Amazon