A Room of Their Own

I did something crazy. I let my 7-year-olds paint their room, or at least one wall of it. I thought if they could make the space truly their own then they might be more inclined to keep it clean. That part hasn't panned out just yet, but I think it actually turned out pretty cool. Of course, this means we can't move now. Ever. I'm thinking the mural does not have, um, resale appeal.

First, I had the boys do some concept art. They decided on a space theme. Elijah drew some aliens and Gabriel drew an adorable rocket.

I took these pictures and copied them as accurately as possible but at a much larger scale onto their wall. I was not smart during this process and did not take mid-project pictures but I'm sure you can imagine the hours and stress involved in painting a wall with an army of small children as helpers. Anyway, this is the finished project:

Pretty cool right? I am feeling like an awesome mom right now. The twins chose all of the colors used in painting. Gabriel is calling his rocket, "The Space Carrot". Edging that black in around all of those bright colors was tough going. The Earth and moon are my part of the project made out of corkboard that I spray painted. Now they have a place to hang up their artwork when the fridge is too full.

The boys loved doing this and now they want to paint their whole desk area with a jungle theme. While I'm down with that in theory, it might take me a few lightyears to recover from this experience before I'm willing to do any child-assisted painting again. For now, they can enjoy "spacing out" in their room and I can give myself a pat on the back every time I see our handiwork. It's out of this world.