A Place of Their Own

By Heather Shields • Photos by Jennifer Kettler

Whether they are resting, playing, hanging out with friends or doing homework, children spend a large amount of time in their bedrooms. It’s a place to call their own, and decorating such a space is an all-important job. 

Three Jefferson City moms share the distinctive results of their journeys from four walls to unique spaces both they and their children love. 

Room to Grow

Jill Schell was torn between a cowboy and a sports-related theme for her 4-year-old son Sam’s new room. She was still pondering the decision when she fell in love with a vintage sport bedding while vacationing in Arizona. 

Schell didn’t purchase it. “But I couldn’t get it out of my head,” she says. Upon returning to Jefferson City, Schell told Susie Schaefer, owner of the Schaefer House, about the bedding. Fate stepped in when Schaefer said, “I have that!”

According to Theresa Heckman of Theresa Heckman Interiors who assisted Schell in designing Sam’s room, the room began with the very subtle vintage sport-themed bedding. “When designing a room, you should always start with one item you love,” Heckman says.

Schell wanted the room to be something Sam could grow into, not out of, and she wanted it to have a lot of playing space and storage, as well as incorporate educational aspects.

To accomplish this, the color palette was drawn from the bedding colors; a dark country blue for the doors and baseboards and an aged gold for some of the walls. Rita Lindenbusch painted the base colors, Lord and Lohe provided customized painting. While there are many colors in the room, it is a very mature use of color—and a great use of space—that will serve Sam well as he grows.

 To bring educational and fun details into the room, Sam’s name is painted on a wall and encircled by different colored shapes. A colorful painting of a United States map and a solar system painting from Schaefer House compliment the room, even though they aren’t sports-oriented. “Kids’ rooms are very open to theme decorating,” Heckman says, “But you don’t want to do it so totally that you can’t veer off of the theme.”

“I didn’t want everything to match, just compliment each other,” Schell says.

Durable corkboard flooring adds warmth to the room. Chalkboard paint adorns the lower half of one wall. Custom-built entertainment units flank a wide window and custom upholstered window seat. Signed sports memorabilia are displayed on the units’ upper shelves and the large drawers on the bottom provide ample storage for Sam’s toys. 

A large wooden bat hangs above the bed, and photos are scattered throughout the room. Framed black and white wall photos add a personalized touch to the vintage sports theme. One photo is of Sam’s grandfather’s baseball team. His great-grandfather is also in the picture; he’s the coach. The other is of Sam’s dad’s high school baseball team. 

“It just feels like Sam in here,” Schell says.  

Paying Homage

“I didn’t want this to be last minute,” Julie Malmstrom says of getting a playroom completed before giving birth to her second child. Julie and her husband, Chip, designed a gender-neutral playroom for their son Matthew and the sibling—they were unaware of the baby’s sex—he would soon have. Paying homage to Chip’s occupation as a teacher, they went with a schoolroom theme, incorporating letters and numbers throughout the room. The neutral color scheme features red, green, and yellow accents. Lord and Lohe created a painted alphabet chair rail reminiscent of chalkboard printing lessons. They also custom painted the sky blue ceiling, including floating white wispy clouds. The lower portion of one wall is a pegboard sandwiched by corkboards, providing space to hang artwork and other items of interest. A kid-sized wooden table and chairs offers Matthew space for coloring or reading books and a height chart camouflaged as a ruler cleverly maintains the schoolroom theme. To best use the space and meet their needs, the Malmstroms removed the accordion closet doors and had Ken Winge, an associate of Theresa Heckman, build customized shelving to convert the closet into a kid-friendly storage space. 

Like Schell, Malmstrom designed her son’s room around a sport-themed fabric she found at Schaefer House. 

“We try to make each room different,” says Brooke Stark of Lord and Lohe. “Even though both Jill and Julie went with a sport-themed room for their sons, the rooms are very different. But, both are fun and very functional.” 

The Malmstroms’ chosen sports fabric has a contemporary flair that will allow the room to grow with Matthew. “You don’t want a room you’re going to have to change in two years,” Brooke Stark says. 

The room uses subtle primary colors, not garishly bright or childlike. The choice extends the versatility of the color palette. A variety of college pennants adorn one wall. A large star dominates yet another wall, and the outside wall bears a custom paint job by Lord and Lohe that creates a locker room illusion. The window bench is upholstered as a football field, complete with yard lines and goal posts. Wooden blinds hang from a customized scoreboard-painted cornice board. Metal storage bins beneath the window seat mimic lockers and a locker-like nightstand sits in the corner. A striped rug pulls together the different patterns and colors throughout the room. 

Malmstrom suggests parents go with what their child is interested in and to look through magazines or online for different ideas that are aesthetically pleasing, as well as functional enough to meet the child’s needs.

“I used local talent,” Malmstrom says. “They helped develop the ideas and thoughts we had.”  

Send in the Clowns

Standing in the doorway to her sons Ben, 6, and Drew’s, 4-year-old, shared bedroom, Tameria Ewers says, “I always knew I wanted to do a circus-themed room.” 

The whimsical room bursts with colors and patterns, with tin toys and vintage circus posters. The effect is laugh-out-loud fun, but Ewers applies cornerstone design elements—functionality, use of space, organization—to keep the room from becoming overwhelming. 

The draperies were created from a vintage circus-themed material purchased on Ebay. The red and white polka dot bed linens on the trundle bed mimic the clown’s suit on the drapes. The red pull knobs on the dresser unit also imitate the suit dots. Tented red and white valances alternate striped patterns and compliment the red and white striped popcorn boxes used as decoration throughout the room. In addition to repeating fabrics, patterns and colors throughout the room, a Pottery Barn light blue rug rimmed with circus animals draws the room together. 

A circus elephant mural painted by grandma Dotty Ewers of The Dunklin Street Gallery graces one wall. A train table from Downtown Book and Toy, a chalkboard topped table, a wall mounted book rack and child sized chairs of varying styles provide plenty of space and opportunity for play. Kid-friendly lined baskets are used as another avenue of pulling in fabric and color, as well as being organizational tools.

“I would advise other parents to start with a great piece.” Tameria says. “If you like it, get it. I would also let them know that they don’t have to get it all at once. We’re still finding pieces that work in the room.”

After seven years, Ewers is surprised, but pleased, that the room hasn’t gotten stale for her boys. “They all play in here a lot,” she says, including her youngest son, two-year-old Jack. “Jack’s room is more of a sleeping room. He likes playing in here with his brothers.” 

Lord and Lohe custom painted the walls of Jack’s room to imitate one aspect of a bunny rug Tameria chose: soft blue and white diamonds sporting yellow stars, pale yellow and white strips with two topiary trees copied from the rug painted on one wall, a hazy blue sky, and a dancing carrot border. Dotty Ewers added a small mouse peeking out of a corner of one wall. Tameria also likes to reuse special items. A baby blanket was used to make a quilt and the crib bed skirt was made into a valance.

In both rooms, the closet doors were removed and replaced with fabric; another way to contribute to the room’s theme and remain functional. Details such as the ivory, iron bird curtain tiebacks against the sky-painted wall are ones that make the difference between an ordinary room and an extraordinary room.