My Son's Dream Bedroom

   Do you have a little boy who has an obsession with all things car related? Well, I do. My boy lives and breathes cars. Sure, he loves trains, planes, and other modes of transportation, but nothing compares to those beautiful automobiles.
   My boy is also a lone wolf in that he has 3 sisters and no brothers. With that, I decided he needed a place that was special for him. That led me to paint him the bedroom of his dreams.

  
  "What?" you say, "that looks like a car mat on a wall!". Yes, indeed, that's what I was going for. I had noticed that my dear little boy would take one of his many, many, many Hot Wheels cars and drive them along the walls in our house. That brought me to an "aha" moment. Why not put a "car mat" on the walls for him to drive on? Some of the roads are out of his reach, but he doesn't seem to mind at all. He stands on his bed for some or brings in the stool from the bathroom. 

    For the roundabout I used a large bowl to trace. I attempted it freehand initially and it was very lopsided and awful.

   I even added a little parking lot on one of the walls. Although this room painting was a bit time consuming, it wasn't all that difficult.

   First off, I painted 3 of the walls green.

   I left one wall blue (I said it represented the ocean), so that I could hang some pictures up without it ruining the effect of the car mat look. 
   
   I then taped off where I wanted the roads to be and filled those in. Being precise with the taping saves having to touch up in the end, so I took my time there. 

   I then added the water areas and the tree areas.

   Finally, I put in the lines for the roads. This took the longest, and in hindsight I would have made the spaces between each line far bigger. Oh well. I used a ruler for this and painted along it. If you ever try this, be sure to have a paper towel or rag handy to wipe off the ruler before you lay it in a new spot.

   And that's all there is to it.
   If you don't like the idea of having your kid drive cars all over the walls, another thing we have done is printed off paper cars and laminated them. We put stick tack on the back and then he can put them all around his room however he likes. It adds to the look and it's a cheap way to get some cars going in the room.