question for you

I really love these orange accents and polka dot bedding. Also the grey walls.

The kids's rooms both need some serious help. There are 2 rooms: the downstairs room and the upstairs room.

Downstairs has dark blue walls with nicks all over every wall. The nicks need to be filled and the room needs to be painted. Besides that the ceiling is a filthy mess. How does that happen? I'd really love to install a hidden camera in there sometime.

Upstairs has yellow walls that I've never liked. Besides that - as soon as I finished painting it a few years ago (could be 3 or 4 years ago now) Sam and Jack wrote all over the walls and I couldn't get all the writing off. At that point I vowed never to put any effort into decorating their rooms.

Other things they've done to damage their rooms include: tearing mobiles or anything that hangs off the ceiling, touching/moving/hitting /throwing things at pictures - so there are no pictures on the walls now, ruining curtains, blinds, anything hanging in the windows.

Besides the fact that these boys destroy lots of things, they are always switching around who sleeps in which room. Upstairs used to be Luke and Charlie, downstairs Jack and Sam. Now Jack and Luke sleep upstairs and Sam and Charlie sleep downstairs. It has probably changed 4 or 5 times in the last 3 years.

Here is my question: Is it worth painting the rooms and trying to decorate them?

I am always trying to think of some sort of boy proof curtains. I've already thought of a few boy proof ways to decorate the walls.

I'd also have to pick similar color schemes so that if anyone swaps rooms, their stuff can all fit nicely into the new room (which presents a problem with the quilts I've made each of them, but I can always make new quilts, right?)

Obviously I am not going to go to too much trouble because I have a billion other projects I'd like to complete before baby cinque (think italian - chink-way) arrives. Such as the hall (which I have been working on the past few days and am very proud of my progress), the stairwell, the basement, the living room. Basically everything needs new paint - we'll see how much we can really get done. Those are only the inside projects.

I just hate the rooms looking so drab and boring. I'm not someone who's going to want to redecorate every year or even every 3 years, so I'd like to come up with something that will work with all the boys' ages. I'd also like to keep it simple. And inexpensive.

Any ideas for boy proof things will be very appreciated, as well as how far you would go or have gone to decorate your childrens' rooms.

again, love the orange, the simple pictures and how they're hung, the grey walls.

I don't think I'd ever paint the walls white, but I like how everything in here goes nicely together without matching. Especially love that patchwork quilt that would go with anything.

all images from ohdeedoh kids' room tours