The Journey of Parenthood…

Tour of Our Home: Kye’s Football Room

We built our home back in 2010. We had never built a house before and only had one child at the time. Kye was about 18 months old! We tried SO HARD to think about long term when we did our build. One of the things that was important to us when finding a house plan was to find one with three downstairs bedrooms. I wanted to always be able to keep the youngest kids near us. Who wants to have to go across the house and up the stairs to put a baby to bed? Or to help a toddler to the bathroom? No thanks!

It was also important to us for each of our kids to have their own room. We knew we planned on having four kids so we made sure to have a five bedroom house! You can see our house plans here! I am not a person who believes in large bedrooms. Our master bedroom is very small. I wanted our square footage to be used in places that we gather as a family and I wanted my kids to have small bedrooms to encourage them to spend more time in the family living areas rather than in their rooms 😉  However, the two upstairs bedrooms are a good bit larger than the ones that are downstairs. Our plan was always for the oldest two kids to get to have the larger upstairs rooms and then the youngest kids to have the downstairs, smaller ones. As the older kids grow up and move out…the younger kids get to move up and take over 😉 We’ll see how it all works out! 

When we got pregnant with Tess we converted Kye’s room into her nursery and Kye moved to his new room upstairs. We used what used to be the playroom and converted it into his bedroom. You can see his old room here and the old playroom here!

I really, really loved Kye’s golf themed bedroom. I felt like it was a “big boy” room and that the theme didn’t really need to change at all for several more years. But it was time for him to move to his new room, which meant a new theme! Originally Kye was hardcore about wanting a Lightning McQueen bedroom. Yikes. I had mentally started gathering ideas and thought I could pull it off without it being tacky…but I also knew that Lightning McQueen wouldn’t be something he’d keep loving for too long. Since this is most likely his room until he moves out someday, I really did want to pick a theme that he’ll like for a LONG time. 

We talked about it and he agreed that his second choice was a football room. The more Zach and I built up how COOL a football room would be, the more he loved the idea and soon it was his first choice 😉 

Since I did love his golf room so much and because I didn’t want to spend a lot of money on his new space…I kept a lot of the same things from his old room and added in football stuff to make it all flow 🙂 We are all really happy with how it turned out and Kye LOVES his new room! 

We painted over the yellow from the playroom. I went with the same tan color from his old room as I thought it fit well with a vintage football vibe. We also decided to do the dormer window area a bright green color to make it a football field!

We used all the same furniture from his old room (it’s all Pottery Barn Kids). Zach played football for Valdosta State and their colors are red and black. Our favorite D1 school is FSU. Their colors are garnet and gold. Unfortunately, Kye’s bedding is navy and red. Since we got all of his bedding for free and it would normally be very expensive (it’s also Pottery Barn Kids) I did NOT want to buy all new bedding. So we went with a generic football theme rather than team specific and we used the navy and red colors that were already in his bedding!

I happened to see this football picture waaaaaay up high at Hobby Lobby and it was on clearance. I text Zach a picture of it and he loved it! It’s actually his favorite thing in Kye’s room 🙂 I also bought a football player and frame from Hobby Lobby and used a baby picture of Kye with Zach’s college helmet 🙂

We have had this same red chair from Ikea (only $99!) since before Kye was born! It was in our living room at our old house, then in Kye’s nursery, then in his golf room and it’s now in his football room. It’s a great little chair! I got a football pillow to put on it. I also found a REALLY cool vintage locker from a great local shop (Chez What if you are local…AWESOME stuff and GREAT prices!!!). She gave me a great price on it and even painted it for us! I think it really MAKES the room!

Zach and I both LOVED the show Friday Night Lights. If you’ve never watched it…it’s seriously one of the best shows ever made. I wanted to use the famous quote from the show in his room and found a seller on Etsy (The Silver Spider) who has all kinds of great stuff! She custom designed this for me and it turned out great 🙂 

I don’t store anything in the locker…Kye is at an age where he collects nick-nacks and thinks he has to keep everything forever and ever (I was the same way as a kid!) so I told him the locker is his special treasure spot to keep all those special things (a much better solution than having them “on display” on his dresser!)

When we first moved into our house and decorated Kye’s golf room, Zach’s college football coach gave him some of the actual turf they use at the college so he could make these letters for Kye’s room. He took large letters from JoAnn’s (Hobby Lobby doesn’t sell the LARGE size) and then covered them all with the turf. It looked cool in the golf room…but makes WAY more sense in the football room! We did them vertical this time and they look awesome. 

The hardest part of the room was making the football field in the dormer window. Zach and I both had a vision of what it would look like and we had a hard time finding decals that matched our vision. I finally ordered some and had a nightmare dealing with the company. So much so that I’m not providing any links to their site. It took 6 weeks for the decals to arrive and then they weren’t right so I had to send them back and get news ones. So annoying! And then they were SUPER hard for Zach to put up! But the hard work and effort paid off b/c they really look awesome 🙂 It’s on both sides of the dormer window walls and we have the word “touchdown” above the window!

Zach plans to eventually build a window seat in the dormer window of both the upstairs bedrooms. But we bought this basket for the playroom and then realized it did NOT fit the style of the room at all but it works perfectly in Kye’s room! It was also the perfect spot for Bruce (Kye’s FSU tackle dummy). 

His bed looks pretty much exactly like it did before. However, we set up his desk! In his old room the desk was against the wall but in this room we have it set up for him to use it. I also bought a football pillow for the top bunk (also from Pottery Barn Kids) and we still don’t have the ladder set up for the bunk bed access. I’m not sure at what point we will allow him to use it? I don’t plan to let him sleep up there for a LONG time. I’m WAY too short to change the sheets and it’d be a huge pain!

I love the picture of Kye and I from his first St Augustine trip as a baby so I kept that on his shelf but added a new football player I found at a the same shop as the locker. I also added a red bucket to store all of his early reader books for him to read during nap time! 

We found the desk chair at Ikea and I had a tough time finding a lamp I liked. I got this one from Hobby Lobby and think it fits the vibe of the room. We also put out his FSU stuff on display on his desk!

The helmet I got for $1 from a kids sale, the football we took on an Aflac cruise where we met Bobby Bowden and he signed it for Kye, and the spirit finger was actually my dads from way back in the day! I found it in some of his stuff in storage…my guess is it’s from when he went to college at FSU back in the 70s?

I found this clock on clearance at Kohl’s 

I loved the chicken wire fence bulletin board Zach made for Kye for his old room so I just changed out all the stuff on it to fit the new room. His old room had pics of him golfing along with golf score cards and such. This one I covered in photos of football related stuff. Some of Zach from when he played, some of our family dressed in FSU gear, some football tickets, etc. I also mixed in some regular photos. Mostly Disney ones as Kye said he wanted some in his room since Britt had some Disney pics in hers 😉 

We kept the same lamp from his golf room and also the Mickey Mouse frame (gotta have a touch of Disney in every room, right?) I found him a football bank and another football figurine from Hobby Lobby to complete the room!

Kye LOVES his new room and it has worked out really well with the transition! I forgot to take photos of his closet but it’s HUGE with tons of space! We used his same storage cubes from his old room and also added one of those storage toy things with the buckets. I keep his shoes there for easy access! His room has a LOT of space to play and it’s great that he has an area he can go to be alone when he gets aggregated with Britt 😉 I know he won’t want to keep his room like this forever…but I do think it’ll stick around for several years worth of enjoyment!

Emily Parker
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