Minecraft Boys Room

So yes, I have two children and yes, they are addicted to Minecraft. Like the nation of children (and a few grown ups).

So, when I offered to re-decorate their room after a move-around (it needed re-painting anyway due to the sheer amount of 'art' on the walls and after moving the furniture it's blindingly obvious where it all used to be), they asked if they could have a Minecraft room. To be fair to them, they currently have nursery curtains (in a very cute zoo animals print), so maybe it is time for a change.
I didn't really want to go with a 'theme', but I know how often I like to change things around so by the time they're bored of it, I'll be very pleased to do whatever needs to be done.

I've pretty much made this up as I went along and I've done it on the cheap with what I could find around the house.

Their room is chocolate milk colour, I last decorated it in February 2012. This is how it was until they grew out of their toddler beds and went into bunk beds.

Ed and Bean's first night in their new bunk beds instagram photo

Unfortunately, no-one wanted to be on the top bunk. Ed got it by default because Bean was too young (and incredibly clumsy) but he's never been particularly happy about it. We had discussed Bean going up there when he hit five and a half over the Christmas period, but when the time came, he wasn't confident enough. So, after measuring everything up, making a layout plan, I worked out I could (just about) get it all to fit with the beds separated. No more top bunk.

Tiny room, bit of a squeeze.

So that's that solved.

Now to work out how the hell I'm going to make a 'Minecraft room'. I googled it and all I came up with was those sticky decals which would last a whole five minutes with my monsters. Mojang aren't making any bedding or anything at the moment so it's just up to the creative types to solve this.

I decided I would go for a simple motif, touch up the chocolate milkshake on the bottom half and paint the top half green. Then I planned to add some Minecraft block detail with a handmade stamp. However, my darling Mr Strawberry commented on how green it would be and wouldn't it be nicer with a blue sky too? Of course he was right, so off to B&Q for more paint I went.

I tried to make a stamp using a piece of wood and some glued to felt, but it didn't hold the paint enough to provide a good stamp, so I ended up making a stencil (oh how I hate working with stencils) but it worked out well after a bit of touching up.

Grass block.

Making the stencil;

Using a grass block as inspiration, I drew out 3x3cm squares on a piece of card, to make a stencil. Then laminated it, and cut out the appropriate squares to make this...

I drew a line around their room using Mr Strawberry's spirit level.

I painted the top half a beautiful sky blue, touched up the brown where it needed it, then painted a green stripe across the middle.

Using my stencil, I added the grass block effect, then painted Minecraft clouds along the top edges. I did them free hand so they're not perfect and would've been better if I'd used my set square, but I'm happy regardless. Remembering which pot had the darker grey proved to be the biggest issue while doing this.

Sky inspiration.

And here's the finished room...

Grass block detail. 

'Snow block' storage from Dunhelm.

I'll tell you all about the curtains in a post coming soon....