Mum Creates Epic Minecraft Bedroom For Just £170 Using B&M Bargains
- Sally, 37, wanted to surprise her gaming-obsessed son with a Minecraft-themed bedroom
- She spent under £200 on the project, picking up bargains from B&M and Wilko
- Several obstacles had to be overcome, including unexpected holes in the walls that had to be filled
- The wall painting took Sally a whopping 25 hours to complete
Most parents out there will know about Minecraft, the popular game that their children are likely obsessed with. One lucky child had his dream come true when he came home after the summer holidays to discover his room had been transformed into a Minecraft paradise. What’s more, his mum had managed to get the whole job done for under £200.
Sally Morris, 37 from Darlington with 3 children, told money-saving community LatestDeals.co.uk: ‘My son is always on his computer and Minecraft is one of his favourite games. He's never had his room decorated properly before and I can hardly get in his room these days so I figured I'd do it Minecraft-themed while he was staying with his dad for the summer. I couldn't find any Minecraft wallpaper so I started Googling Minecraft bedroom ideas and I saw someone had done a similar project - so I figured I'd give it a go.’
Sally managed to get her supplies from bargain stores, and they were pretty cheap. ‘I bought all the paints, wallpaper, lining paper and paste from B&M & Wilko. I already had the red and black vinyl which I used on his fridge from previous DIY jobs. His bed set came from Littlewoods and his curtains were from Amazon.
‘The total cost for these supplies was £140, including filler, wallpaper paste, lining paper, paint, wallpaper, vinyl wrap for his door, brushes and rollers. Additionally, his bed set and curtains were about £30 in total.’
Sally got to work on the project, but she had an unexpected job to complete once she was looking at the bare walls. ‘I had to totally strip his walls, which had two layers of wallpaper and two layers of lining paper on. When I got to the bare walls they were full of holes which I then had to fill in and sand down, so while I was waiting for the filler to dry I vinyl wrapped his fridge.
‘The next day I put the lining paper up on all the walls. I painted over the lining paper on one of the walls with white paint. Then I was going to use masking tape to mark out the squares on that wall, but I thought it might pull the paper off. So I just used pencil lines, and marked each square with letters to indicate which colour paint was going to be used.’
Sally then had to do some quick thinking when her paint didn’t come out the way she’d hoped. ‘I started with the darkest brown colour - however, the paint I originally bought was too dark. Luckily I'd only bought tester pots to complete each colour so it wasn't a big deal. I went back to the shops but they didn't have any tester pots of the colour I wanted, so I bought a 2.5l pot of paint and went back over the dark brown squares I'd already done.
‘Once they were finished, I put some leftover white paint in the leftover brown paint to lighten it and did the next lot of brown squares. Then I added more white to the remaining paint to get the next shade of brown.
‘While I was waiting for some of the brown squares to dry I would do some of the green squares. I had the same problem with the green paint as I did with the brown in that it was slightly darker than I liked. However, it wasn’t so dark that I had to totally redo the job, so once I'd used the green paint for the first squares I added some white to it to lighten it up again.
‘I'd bought two tester pots which ended up covering two of the three green shades. Then I used a different coloured green tester pot and added some white into that until I was reasonably happy with the colour. I wasn't 100% happy but by this time my son was due back in a couple of days so I was running out of time!’
It’s safe to say the wall painting took up the most time. ‘I finished the wall after about 25 hours in total of painting squares. I was painting on average 10 squares per hour and there were 256 squares in total!
‘Then I moved onto wallpapering the window wall with brick wallpaper. I had to watch some YouTube tutorials on wallpapering around a window but it was easier than I thought!
‘Then I hung the wooden slat wallpaper horizontally on the last two walls. This was difficult as I was doing it alone but luckily my son has a cabin bed so I used that as a scaffold to assist with getting the paper right across the top of the walls.
‘My son was due back the next day at that point so I was in full panic mode and ended up staying up until 4 am to get it finished! However, the trains were canceled the next day so I had a full day to tidy up and put all his stuff back in his room.
‘I also put vinyl on his door that day which took longer than I expected as I left the door on the hinges and I couldn't get the handles off it due to the screws being rounded off. I had to work the vinyl down the door, cut a hole where the handle was and then work the handle through the vinyl…
‘In total, this project took me about 2 weeks to complete as I have a younger child so I couldn't be decorating constantly. If I could do anything differently I would have started sooner so I wasn't rushing towards the end and staying up really late every night.
‘I'd have also liked to have tried colours out first to make sure they were perfect instead of having to settle due to lack of time! However, my son now loves his new room so it was worth it in the end.’
Tom Church, Co-Founder of LatestDeals.co.uk, said: ‘Sally has done a truly impressive job here - the transformation is amazing! I bet her son loves his new room and doesn’t want to leave it!
‘This kind of makeover would easily have cost several hundred pounds if she’d gone down the professional route, so she’s done really well to pick up cheap supplies from budget-friendly stores and get the job done herself. What an inspiration!’
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