an "All Boy's" Room: Project Batcave redo

Do you know that saying, "He's all boy"?  I don't particularly care for it, and that's not the meaning of my post title. 

This summer, my boy is asking to have his room re-done.  I've done his room up until now, adding in his touches where he asks.  He has great tastes and I value his input: he has picked out so many of my paint colors, and has made final decisions on fabric (when I get to this one or this one and can't make a decision, he's decisive.  And right.)  He has good taste. 

So now that it's about his room, I can't wait to see what he has in mind.  One thing I am sure of: It's going to be all him.   We refer to him so much as "boy", so it will be an all boy's room, for sure.

Before that happens, though, I need to go down memory lane.  And I realize my message is in his room.  My message, you ask?  My message is that you can do it.  Whatever it is.  I'm sharing the message of just getting in there and trying.....no matter what.  Even when it scares you, or you think you definitely will fail. try anything. 

Snakes scare me.  Building him a treehouse scared me for weeks.  Many times I thought I would fall fail; ok, I thought I would fall a few times too!

Another times I was frightened?  When boy asked me to paint a batman scene on his batcave wall.

There are things I can do, and I'll try most anything.  Painting pictures of any kind is not included.  But you see, my boy has gotten used to asking me to do things, and knows I'll try. 

He just didn't know I couldn't paint a picture.  And I didn't want to say no.  So I tried.  Rule #3: What happens if you fail?  In this case, I admit to him I couldn't do it, and then paint over the mess. 

I can live with that.

So I started.  And here is where I finished:

The yellow wall color was what was on the walls in the room.  I scoured the internet for pictures of bat-signals and cityscapes, and found one similar to this.  The city was simply a series of blocked off areas with painter's tape; buildings with lights were added later.  I wanted to add more, but the boy said no, he was fine without lights.

The yellow bat-signal light was blocked off with painters tape, and I drew the bat signal on the wall freehand with pencil.  Yes, I erased a lot, and you (I) can still see pencil lines in the drawings, but I was happy with how it turned out.  It actually looked  like the real thing! 

The colors were samples sizes of Sherwin Williams paint.  I still have a lot of black and yellow paint in the basement, and have no idea what I will ever do with them! 

The room all started with this new bed from Flexa.  He immediately called it his "Batcave".  His grandma lovingly made all the "bat curtains" and it was loads of fun.  The original yellow on the walls became dark dark blue.  He picked it out, and assured me it wasn't too dark. I thought it would be way too dark.  He was right. I was wrong. It's been lovely for the past 4 years.

But it's time for a change.  The days of Batman and superheroes are behind us.  We've moved on to guitars, baseball and more grownup things of a nine year old. 

He's making plans.  I plan to make it happen.  Why? Because this face is worth it!  I will try anything he asks for, and we'll see.  What's the worst that can happen?

christmas 2008: the "O" of our JOY card