This baseball bat bookshelf just turned up on Craigslist for $20, very reasonable… the seller is in Denver (Colorado), however, so the shipping costs are a deal-breaker for me, most of the continent away.

Still, it’s a cute piece. A two-tiered shelf like this one could be the perfect finishing touch for a baseball theme room, if you happen to be in that part of the United States — or if you have better woodworking skills than I do!

Technorati Tags: baseball, theme, shelves

Janet and I had so much fun decorating her boy’s baseball theme bedroom — and young Josh is having so much in his own personal “Fields of Dreams” space — we’ve been looking around for more ideas to make the room even better…

Today’s useful find was a retro clothes locker at Stack and Stacks. With a removable rod and a shelf that you can adjust to suit the kid, it’s “made from industrial strength powder coated square tube, bar stock and sheet steel with a silver finish and decorative powder coated door color.”

It comes in several colours — either the red or blue will please our young Red Sox fan, and give him some much-needed storage in his bedroom.

What Josh really really really wants, of course, is a photograph wall mural of Fenway Park at night — but at $400 (it’s official Major League fan gear at MLB.com) he’s going to have to save his allowance and chore money until he’s about ready to graduate from college, before that’s going to happen!

But lying in bed at night, pretending to be right there in the floodlit stadium, hearing the roar of the crowd… it would be kinda cool, wouldn’t it?

Technorati Tags: baseball, themes, decorating

My pal Janet and I put our heads together over the weekend to come up with some affordable ideas for a baseball theme room for Josh, who’s turning 12 and wanted a bedroom to celebrate his favourite sport.

It’s hard to get more baseball crazy than a glove-and-ball chair and ottoman set.

The baseball-glove bean bag chair is made from a durable nylon fabric, while the ottoman is made from vinyl to simulate the look and feel of an over-sized baseball. Both are stuffed with those polystyrene beads that are so much more comfortable than those original beanbag chairs that Janet and I grew up with!

It’s not a large bedroom (and Janet’s budget isn’t very large either) so we decided to keep the perfectly serviceable textured taupe carpet, drapes, and bedding — with the addition of a $20 bedside mat that had the logo of Josh’s favourite team on it (found in the home decor section of our local DIY store), and a few inexpensive throw pillows in the team colours (picked up on sale at Wal-Mart).

Inspired by a wall shelf with a decorative baseball bracket, we put together something similar using Josh’s existing bookshelf, a glue gun, and a few spare baseballs.

Finally, Janet cut an X-shape in two baseballs and fitted one over each end of the plain old department-store curtain rod, for a great finishing detail!