Boy's Basketball Room

Designing for kids (especially older kids) can be challenging.  Sometimes what they want in a room (lime green walls, monkey bars or everything to be zebra print) isn't always attractive practical.  At Nine Design Group, we recently got a call from a mom who wanted to make her 10 year old son's room a place he would not only love now, but one that he could easily grow into.

During the initial phone call with Mom, I uncovered some of the boy's wants and "needs".  One thing she told us was that he loved basketball.   In fact, he actually had a basketball goal in his room. 

With that information, the challenge became to make a basketball themed room that was sophisticated enough to carry him through his teenage years and would also be appealing to Mom.  The answer....keep the main walls a neutral gray (for Mom) and I would paint a feature wall to look like a giant basketball (for him).  

Together, we selected just the right color of orange for the basketball and carried it around the room with athletic inspired stripes.  (Sorry, I don't have pictures of the rest of the room.)  The thick black stripe is actually chalkboard paint (kids love it) where he and his friends can draw or write notes.   

I would love to act like I just whipped out this painting without much effort, but that was not the case.  It turned out to be one of those projects that once I started, I wondered if I had bit off more than I could chew.  It was MUCH more time consuming than I anticipated.  Mainly, because I am super picky about cutting in the lines.  There was no way to tape this one off because of all of the curves.  It was all by hand.  I spent HOURS touching up the edges with a tiny artists brush. 

My client and I laughed that I was like Eldin, the painter on Murphy Brown that came to paint and never left!

Well, I finally did finish just in time for the boy to get home from school....

(and do his homework, play some basketball, eat dinner and watch some TV).

The room was a big hit. His reaction when he saw the basketball wall..... "AWESOME!"  Mom was happy too!