New bed & dresser: $607
New carpet: $272
New mattress: $216
Pottery Barn Kids surf bedding: $128
Sleeping in your new big boy room any way you want: Priceless



Tay: We ordered Aiden's bed & dresser during a memorial day sale and I spent the rest of the week haggling with salesmen to finish converting Aiden's bedroom into a bog boy room. When I was 6 months pregnant, I fell in LOVE with this brown, blue and navy surf room set. I made all his nursery decor signs to match this bedding set and purchased the twin quilt & sheeting from PBK when it went on clearance when Aiden was just 3 months old.

I spent most of last week running all over Houston, trying to find a good quality carpet remnant and installer to put it in. After being quoted $495 and $380 for Aiden's bedroom, I realized my $200 budget was not realistic but in my search I found an AWESOME floorcovering store inside the loop with a massive selection of room-sized remnants and the owner put me in touch with Tio who will be doing all of our carpet installs. (I'm eyeing our master bedroom next.) Aiden ended up with a gorgeous pin-dot pattern luxury carpet in his room that has a fine, short pile that is excellent for driving cars on! That was actually one of the reasons I selected it, next to the fact that it's easy to clean short pile carpet all the way to the backing if he throws up. His existing builder-grade carpet was heavily soiled and stained, despite our best cleaning efforts, and it was in need of replacement. Aiden's easy gag-reflex and vomiting with every cold & fever will probably always mean we replace his carpeting more often than most households. Thank goodness for my job at Flooring America. I never would have guessed it would come in so handy!

Next I had to get a mattress. In March my parents generously offered to pay $200 towards the mattress as part of Aiden's birthday gift. I let that dollar amount set my budget and was shocked to find that a fair quality mattress would be at least $300 and the quality I wanted would run $500 or more. Feeling up for the shopping challenge, I hit the Mattress Firm Clearance Center on a slow, quiet Friday at 3 pm and (playfully) worked the sales rep over. I ended up leaving with a premium quality Sealy floor model for $216 after tax - about $300 off the retail price. I was SO proud of myself and called my mom, who was stunned by the current prices of mattresses and even more stunned by my haggled price!

Last but not least was the furniture swap. The dark brown Ikea cubby, which matches his new furniture incredibly well, came out of the office and Aiden's white bookcase took it's place. His white dresser is being turned into linen & art supply storage in the playroom and his crib will go into the attic until we need it again in a couple years. Aiden's room will make a slow transition to doubling as his playroom so the playroom can become a second bedroom when we need it. (For now I guess he's just a spoiled only child with two rooms all to himself! LOL!)

So last night was Aiden's first official night sleeping in his new big boy room. We put him to bed just before 8 and re-put him to bed twelve more times after he came out for various excuses, the newest being requests for drinks of water. (Honestly, where does EVERY kid learn this trick?!!) A little after 9 I got tired of the game and hauled in a stack of children's church books, which Aiden finds so boring he usually refuses to have us read them or falls asleep. Just what we needed! I read three, sang Aiden several quiet songs (including Jesus Wants Me for a Sunbeam about fifteen times so he could learn all the words) and then kissed him goodnight for the eighteenth time around 10:15. The room fell quiet shortly thereafter and Brian and I got ready for bed. At 10:45 I heard Brian open the door to peek in on Aiden and then I heard him clap a hand to his mouth and begin shaking with rolls of muffled laughter! He ran for the camera as I went to see what was so funny. There on the floor was Aiden, legs sticking out, half-way under his bed and completely asleep! After all that work this was akin to having him play with the box the toy came in but it was so hilarious it didn't matter! Unbeknownst to us Aiden had discovered a new, secret playspace he didn't have before. It kind of ruins my plans for under-bed storage but I'm so thrilled to see creativity exploding out of him these days that I'll gladly swap storage for creative play!

Speaking of which, the next thing I'd like to add to his room is a beautiful block set that I've been saving my graphics commission money for, especially since Aiden cannot get enough of building "sidewalks" with blocks for his cars to drive on! :)

Our end goal was to purchase sturdy, good quality items that would give Aiden a cool room that would last him all the way through middle-school and I think we did just that. Thank you, Brian, for all you do and how hard you work for us. I love you!