Transitioning My Toddler Son To A Big Bed and A Sneak Peak Into His New ‘Big Boy Bedroom’ With Affordable Decor and Furniture Ideas in Bangkok
It’s no secret my family is growing and certain changes had to be made around my house to accomodate our new family member 🙂
The biggest change happened for my son who is now 3 years old and a big brother too! He had to vacate his baby crib for his little sister and it was time anyways — his legs are so long they are now hitting the edges of the crib.
About a month before the arrival of his little sister, I moved my son to what I call his new ‘big boy bedroom’, where he now sleeps on a queen size bed. To make my son’s big bed extra safe; prevent him from wandering off dnd out of his room at night; and help with the transition, I added these cot style rail guards I found on Shopee. I really like them because they mimic his old crib with the high rails; my son can’t ‘escape’ because he’s used to waiting for an adult to lower the rail guards so he can come out so it wasn’t a huge or shocking transition from crib to bed.
My son’s new room (our guest room) already had espresso brown as its base because it’s the colour of the floor, bed and curtains. Espresso brown is a very strong, dark, and non kid-friendly colour so I struggled a bit with trying to figure out how to convert the room into a kid-friendly friendly space. I did some research and Pinteresting to figure out what colours and tones work with dark brown and I figured out that shades of blue and white would work really well. White is completely neutral and will brighten the whole room while blue has a cool undertone tone so it will balance nicely against the warmth of the brown in the room.
I brought white into the room with a bookshelf, wall decor and picture frames. The shades of blue are what I call ‘soft and removable’ furnishings such as carpets, picture frames, and art work. If at any point I want to change the room’s colour theme to something neutral or adult, I can easily do so.
I didn’t really want to invest in expensive or fancy furniture for the new room because..well, kids. And I wanted to keep enough open space for him to play with toys and reduce chances of any “bump into furniture related” accidents. So I opted to put only this bookshelf I already had at home, which has lots of shelves for storage in his room. It holds some of his larger toys, which I also arranged in a way to look decorative, and his entire library of books. The bookshelf was originally a brown wood colour and I had it painted white. The white base is also nice because my son’s toys and books are so colourful that they really pop against the white.
I placed this kids size sofa (bought second hand) on the floor near the bookshelf to create a little reading / chill out nook for my son. I still think he’s a bit young for it but I like having a space for him to relax if he wants to.
This white SOLGUL wall shelf from IKEA offers a double function for storage and decor as you can see from the photo below. I designed the chalkboard print for my son’s first birthday and I like that it’s a personalised piece of decor.
For wall decoration I put up paintings, which I had commissioned by an artist from Art & Soul – The Studio in Bangkok. I love how playful and colourful they are and brighten up the whole room.
On another wall, I framed some of my son’s homemade arts and crafts in very affordable IKEA FISKBO picture frames in light blue and white. I think this is a great way to showcase kids crafts (he has so many!) and add a playful decorative vibe to the room.
These blue cloth baskets are from a reasonably-priced local children’s goods online retailer, A Child Story, and they offer multiple uses such as toy storage, laundry basket, linen storage etc. Again, they are functional yet decorative and add more colour and character to the room.
On the floor, I added a mix of white and blue carpets (bought from Index and IKEA) in different shapes and sizes to brighten up the dark espresso floors and create softer surfaces for my son to play.
Overall, I’m really happy with the way the room turned out. It’s a joyful, colourful and warm place and the best part is my son really likes his new room and I was able to do it in an affordable and creative way.
I hope you found this post useful. Please leave your thoughts in the comments below.