What is your 8 year old son's bedroom like?

[puddle]

Am looking for inspiration. Have just redecorated ds and dd's bedroom.

DD's is lovely - I have found lots of nice bits and pieces to make it look special - from pretty stickers to spell out her name over her bed to butterflies round the mirror, fairy lights and pretty dangly things.

DS's is....really dull. He's at the stage where he dismisses a lot of the themed room stuff aimed at boys as babyish (eg dinosaurs, cars), he's not into football really (so thankfully we don't have to theme the room around a team strip).

I want to make it as nice as DD's but am all out of ideas - can anyone inspire me?

Is it possible he'd actually prefer it dull? Perhaps get some hangers he can put his own pictures up on, on a temporary basis?

We redid my stepsons' bedroom last year. They are now 10 and 12 (8 and 11 when we did it).

We bought:

• two plain divan beds
• bright red undersheets and pillow cases from Ralph Lauren
• green and white striped duvet covers from Descamps
• two bright red metal sports lockers from Ikea
• one huge bright red metal overhead lampshade from Conran Shop
• one bright red metal desk lamp from Jieldé
• one huge wooden desk top and two wooden trestles from Ikea
• two very solid wooden swivel stools from Habitat
• two wooden babyfoot clothes hangers from Conran shop
• one metal shoe rack from Ikea
• one wooden DVD/computer game shelf
• maps of the world
• one large wall clock from Conran Shop

Plus a small stripped pine desk and a red metal chair that I had left over from another life.

Still need a bookcase and two new bedside lights.

There's a book called Teen Zone recently out that might give you ideas.

Thanks Anna - that's v comprehensive! I have ordered him a wall map he wanted and we have got two shelves to put up for him still which should help. He has bunk beds so we have made the bottom bunk into a chill out sofa-ish area with cushions etc.

I think maybe somewhere to display pictures/ photos would be good.

We re-did ds's room last year (when he turned 7, just before he started Junior School)
Ds is not into football either (thankfully ) so we did the following:

He has stripped wood floors (which are all through the house) and I painted his walls white.
I bought a yellow egg-shaped desk top from Ikea and grey/silvery metal legs. I bought a grown up Jules desk chair (the green one with the holes in the backrest) from Ikea.
Then we bought two grey locker-style metal cabinest (again Ikea) which we placed approx 3 ft apart. We then mounted beech wooden shelves with chunky metal brackets inbetween the cabinets, to use for books, golf trophy, money box, lego models etc.
Dh brought the back of a metal filing cabinet home from work, sprayed it dark grey and hung it at an angle above the desk. We bought him some lego-brick magnets for it.

He already had a grey metal bed.

We bought him some bedding from Ikea. One set is blue with large green/turquise/blue squares. The other one is in the same colours but with a spot/circular design.
We hung blue velux blinds in the window (he has the loft hence velux windows)

We then framed some photographs (one he took from the window of an airplane - showing the wing - whilst on holiday, and another of him in the plane's cockpit on the same holiday) in simple frameless clipit frames and hung them on the wall.

He has a beech shelf above his bed for his nintendo + games, his cd player and cds.

On the wall is a silver bedside/reading light (again ikea)

All in all very simple to do, very nice, very cheap (gotta love ikea) and because it has all been kept quite neutral he can add to it as and when he wishes. (I am dreading the appearance of semi-naked girls draped over a car bonnet in the years to come)

Try Next online - they have some nice boy stuff that isn't too themed. Just doing my boys who are 3 and 7. They are having the beige dinosaurs which are proper pics,not cartoons. Kept the walls mag and woodwork white.