As I helped my son put on his uniform for his very first day at school, I scanned his bedroom and quickly realised that he had very much outgrown the room I had decorated for him when he was just a year old. No longer a baby, his nursery-like bus wallpaper and aeroplane-themed furniture handles did not reflect this strong-willed young boy in front of me. His room needed to be updated, so over the space of 6 months, I worked on different areas of the room to make it more in line with his age.

Even though this room has had a complete overhaul, it has thoroughly been done on a budget. The only fittings that I purchased for the update were a new pendant light and a set of drawers from IKEA. His wardrobe still met his needs, so I upcycled it to fit in with the new decor scheme. I relied on the ‘power of paint’ to turn the room from a calm nursery into a colourful boy’s bedroom. I used my initiative when I couldn’t have the wallpaper that I had set my heart on.

I am delighted at how the room has turned out and even though it took a bit of time and energy, it was all relatively simple to do and didn’t cost me much money. These are the 6 keys things that I did to transform the room without splashing the cash:

To make this a really fun room, I added colour to a few key areas. The walls were given a fresh coat of white paint as a base, but I painted his plain cream door in this primary blue shade to inject some personality.

The non-working fireplace was once just a cold, black hole. To make it an interesting focal point I added some inexpensive tiles in a variety of geometric patterns. I only needed 60 tiles at a few pence each, so it was a completely budget-friendly way to create some visual interest.

Wall decals are a really inexpensive way to create a feature in a child’s bedroom and can be easily removed if required, so they provide a great alternative to investing in wallpaper.

A few years ago I had seen a bedroom designed by the wonderful Born & Bred Interior Design Studio, featuring wallpaper with a repeat lightning bolt pattern. I instantly fell in love with the paper and tried to source it, but it was by an American brand and after calculating shipping, duty and taxes to the UK, there was no way that I could afford it. Instead, I used this wallpaper as my inspiration and painted the chimney breast black, then added inexpensive removable vinyl decals on top in white and gold. I applied every single one, including every separate raindrop, by hand! It took a few days to apply so I did it in stages, but I love the end result and it was so worth the effort.

I printed these wall decals out on my Cricut craft cutting machine, but you can buy wall decals online from places such as Little Chip and Inkmill Vinyl, who will create them to your size and specification.

The white IKEA wardrobe that I had in the room still met requirements and fitted perfectly in the alcove, so I was not going to replace it. To get it to fit into the new colourful scheme, I upcycled it by spray-painting the doors yellow and changing the handles.

As the wardrobe gets daily use, I did not want the paint to chip so I used PlastiKote’s primer and top coat as well as their spray paint in a mustard yellow colourway. I simply removed the doors and taped off the parts that I did not want to spray with decorator’s tape.

I changed the old nursery knobs to these sleek black pulls which only cost me a few pounds from All Handles And Pulls.

A major part of the room revamp was this wall mural that I created last summer. You can find a detailed step-by-step guide to how I created it here. All you need to paint a wall mural like this is a good decorator’s tape and some sample paint pots. Even though it takes a few days to complete as you need to let one part dry completely before moving on to the next, it’s a really cheap way to create a big impact!

I really loved the effect of the rainbow in the wall mural and still had leftover paint from when I created it, so I decided to use it to create a similar effect on the connecting wall behind the bed. I previously just had art and his school certificates up on this wall, but everything looked a bit lost. By adding slanted rainbow stripes in a box frame, I wanted to create the effect of a colourful ‘notice board’ or ‘backing’ to the pictures. I did this simply using leftover paint, a set square to ensure the stripes were all at equal heights, a spirit level and decorator’s tape. Adding paint behind framed artworks is something that is really popular right now after one of my favourite interior bloggers, French For Pineapple, colour-blocked a collection of small, square art prints in her home. It’s a really simple, clever and budget-friendly idea that she came up with to add an extra layer of ‘wow factor’ and can be done with any unused sample pots you have hanging around at home.

Moving existing items around your home and swapping them about in different rooms is a great way to give your home a refresh and bring new life to them, all without costing any money! Now that this room was coming together, I looked to my home to see if anything currently in it would now be better suited to my son’s updated bedroom.

In my home office, I had a La Redoute Berber rug, but the black/white colourway suited the scheme of his room so I took it out of my office and put the currently unused outdoor rug in there instead. The black bobby floor lamp from Habitat had been relocated to the loft when I stopped using it downstairs, but it suited this room scheme a treat so I took it out of the loft and added it in.

What do you think of my son’s bedroom update? Let me know in the comments box! If you have any other easy and low-budget tips to update a child’s room that I have missed, do share them below!