A Peek inside Chez QT: Jayson's room

After my post the a while back (heck, it seems like last year- been really busy lately!) about the ducks I had a few requests to see the rest of my son's Adirondack-themed room. With Jayson's permission, I'll take you on a tour:

(See the ducks in the center of the photo? ;)

Before he was born, we did not know ahead of time whether we were having a boy or a girl, so we did not decorate a "nursery". I figured we'd wait and see, and then decorate the room for either a little boy or girl after the baby arrived.

Well, of course the baby arrived and I could not get anything done for almost a year... which meant that he ended up sleeping in what was still our home office. (Hey, a computer screen makes for a nice nightlight!)

But I did start accumulating some vintage outdoor things for the theme I had in mind. My husband is really into hunting and fishing, so it was natural that we settled on that for a theme. And that also meant that we have quite a bit of taxidermy in our house, so some of that could be moved into his room. (Note: if you are not into taxidermy, there will be some photos of that to follow, so avert your eyes...)

The first thing I did was paint a mural of a giant tree in the corner where the crib was. It came out rather well, I have to say, considering I don't really think of myself as an artist. I do wish I had thought to repaint the walls and ceiling before I did it, though, because now we're stuck with a dreary beige around the mural that I can't stand!

The racoon in the tree and the stuffed coyote (aka "Charlie") were some of my father-in-law's things we got after he passed away this year. Since we don't need the crib here anymore, we're going to set up this corner with a desk for schoolwork in the next couple of weeks. Jayson starts Kindergarten this year and we want him to have his own workspace.

These are some of the wooden plaques Jayson collects now. Our rule is that they have to be an outdoor theme and marked somewhere on the back from a state park or tourist destination. They still make and sell these things; we just bought one new a little while ago on our trip to Crystal Cave. But all the rest in his room are vintage; the oldest ones are dated in the 50s. I think we have 11 or 12 so far. The lamp is a vintage scenic lamp that has a 3-D effect; I posted about another similar lamp in Jayson's room here.

The small plaque in the middle is dated 1957, and a souvenir of a cruise to Norway (Who knew Norway was into frontier kitsch???)

This is one of my favorite pieces of furniture in our whole house.

It's a child-size kitchen hutch made in the 1930s as part of a WPA project. It's marked on the back "Michigan State Toy Project" and belonged to my mother as a child. (She was born in Detroit in 1940.) It got passed down through the years to my cousins and finally myself, and has the crayon scribbles inside to proves it. On top is Jayson's thift store lamp score and one of my paint-by-number collection.

And since today is Thrifted Thursday, my favorite thing in the whole room is the wool blanket/bedspread. It's a great vintage piece, probably from the 30s or 40s and is marked "Linn Lake Lodge". I bought it for $5 (it cost me more to get it cleaned!) and I still regret not snapping up a couple more- they had a whole bunch of them!