Makeover By Monday | 3-Day Teen Game Den & Bunk Room Renovation

This weekend’s makeover was my first time designing for a teenage client. It was such a fun challenge. Rae is an amazing single mom to her 13 year old son Elijah. She had bought a house from the city a few years ago, and had been working to completely rehab it. It was a long process that left her burnt out, so she reached out to see if we could help her makeover two rooms for Elijah. Elijah is an old soul, loves records, and has a sophisticated color palette. Rae said he liked dark colors like purple and burnt oranges (I was into neon and N’Sync at that age, ha!). I took all the direction I could to transform these two spaces, taking on my first rooms for a teen!

How sleek does Elijah’s new den look now!? The dark paint really helped create a cohesive look and shined up the old plaster walls. It was important there was space for Elijah and his friends to hang out, game, and listen to records, so we gave him some low seating with bean bag chairs, and created a hangout area. There’s even a mini-fridge and snack station. Since finishing the renovation, Ray has been sending us photos of Elijah and his friends hanging out in the space; it’s so fun to see! I just love how this space came together.

The big transformation is that we removed a wall to open up a closet, creating a desk for Elijah where his record player could sit, he could do homework and read.

I wanted to create a contrast in color to the dark raisin brown in the main room, so I picked this really pretty blue color. Mr. Yolo did custom built-ins and a custom desk, fitting it perfectly for his records and homework. We opened up this unused space to create a den room, and it feels so much bigger now!

Mr. Yolo’s idea was a secret door, which I was initially hesitant about doing another build, but it turned out so cool. Since I can’t stop at one room; we renovated the back room too, creating a bunk room. Doing this space too was a big addition, because we built custom bunk beds for Elijah’s friends to sleep over., but it was so worth it! We added a game table, closed up the entrance to the closet, kept the original floors, added a vintage rug, and gave everything a fresh coat of khaki paint.

What I love about both spaces is that they are durable. They work for a teen, but also look sophisticated. They’re something that Elijah can grow with because Rae said she doesn’t plan on leaving that house ever! We wanted something that he could grow with, and that his friends would want to hang out in. One of the things we added to the floor was carpet tiles to cover up the previous flooring and provide something that worked well with teen boys. I got three different colors and created a buffalo check pattern. It looks super custom and is a great DIY project that anyone can do!

One of my favorite DIY projects in the space is this pixelated art. We cut around 1000 little pixels out of one by one dowels, spray-painted them, and placed them in this frame to create this really cool abstract piece. I’ll have a full DIY Tutorial for that coming soon! It turned out even better than I thought. I love that it ties in Elijah’s love for gaming and creating AI art in this retro pixelated piece.

Watch Season 2 of ‘Makeover By Monday’ Saturdays at 1p/12p c on the Magnolia Network on TV! Or stream anytime on Max and Discovery plus!