How to Give a Room a Rustic and Masculine Makeover

When decorating a boy's room, that "fix it" area or your husband's den, try the following inexpensive and hard-wearing surfaces.

You Will Need:

Old corrugated iron sheets. These can be obtained by taking a short drive around town and looking for yards with dilapidated old sheds. Make the owner an offer to pull down the shed for free, in exchange for the old iron which you want to keep. Most people will be glad of such help, and some will even offer to pay you. There will only be a couple of hours worth of work to transport the old timbers which are no longer of any use to the local dump, or take these home and cut them up for your backyard fire pit or vegetable garden edging.

Check out the timbers from the framework of the shed before pulling it down as you may need to purchase some elsewhere if none are suitable for dado rails. If there are some good lengths, put these aside to keep. You could also call a local builder to see if he had any leftover stock you could purchase. The timbers don't need to be fancy, but must be pest free and sturdy enough to be fastened to the walls of your new room. I used old and very rough timbers, none of which matched but all were long enough to span one wall without having any joins.

Meanwhile you will have saved your old newspapers for this project rather than sending them to the trash man or recycling center. Gather enough to wallpaper the room being redecorated.

Purchase a wallpaper adhesive from your local hardware store. Inform the sales person what you are doing in order to get the most suitable product. Also, buy some capped roofing nails for fastening the iron to your walls, some blackboard paint, metal mesh - recycled is OK - pick up some old linoleum if they have offcuts available or a large sheet of cork board, 1 gallon can of clear high gloss lacquer, spray on paint stripper, a hammer and tape measure...and have a truck, or car with trailer handy for transporting materials.

You will only be covering three walls altogether, but four with iron:

-Remove the baseboards, or skirting boards from all around the room. Strip the baseboards back to raw wood with spray on paint stripper. These can be lacquered and set outside to dry before replacing.

-Wallpaper the 3 walls down to just below half way with the old newspapers. It doesn't matter how they are placed, but right way up is best though for those who may be visiting and scanning for interesting old facts of the day.

- Take your old sheets of corrugated iron and fasten to the walls from where the newspaper ends, all the way to the floor. Use your timber lengths to create a rail half way up the wall travelling around all four walls; at the bottom of the newspaper, meeting and covering the top of the iron edges.

-Get some clear finishing lacquer and paint over the newspaper to protect it from peeling or tearing. Helpful little hands can sometimes be caught adding some personal touches, so the glossy finish type which can be wiped clean with a damp rag is best.

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-On the fourth wall, divide into two or three sections.

-From the top working downward to half way, cover one section with rigid metal mesh, the kind used to reinforce concrete work. A cheaper substitute is a section of old metal mesh fencing wire. This will be used for hanging tools and decorative memorabilia on. If you're in a little boy's room, blackboard paint on another section will serve the obvious purpose. A third section of the wall can be covered in a sheet of cork board or old linoleum of a suitably matching color. Thumb tacks can be used to place notes and pictures if no cork board is located, or a large sheet of it works out too expensive. You may wish to construct a bench type stool to span the length of the wall so little folk can go along and draw with colored chalk, or where Dad can stand to hang tools or his fishing poles out of reach.

-Cover this wall from half way down, to the floor with iron as well.

-Replace base boards.

Nothing needs to be fancy and this should not be a hard project to do yourself. If there are two of you, it can be done in just one weekend, and the kids can help too.The old iron and the distressed look of the timber will serve to create a rustic and masculine atmosphere for big boys and small alike.