I’ve long been a fan of Donna Howell’s aesthetic having fallen in love with her perfectly curated monochrome instagram account which she updates daily with her latest adventures, interior inspiration and inspired crafts (check out her chic Halloween party decor!).

She’s a proud mummy to five year old Jonnie and it turns out only lives a stone’s throw away from me although we’ve yet to meet IRL. You can imagine then how excited I was when Donna agreed to share Jonnie’s beautiful monochrome boy’s bedroom here on Rock My Family. There are so many ideas to steal and I love the flexibility of choosing such a chic colour scheme which would suit boys and girls, old and young.

I should offer our apologies in advance if you want to buy all the things we have linked to in the post below. I confess that several items made their way into my shopping bag in the name of research 😉

Over to Donna…

When designing Jonnie’s bedroom a couple years ago I wanted it to be a simple but cute monochrome boy’s room. Going monochrome meant it flows with the rest of the house and doesn’t stand out like a sore thumb; it is also a great background for a clean and bright room. Ronnie’s room is south facing so light floods into the room through the shutters. I have to say it is probably my most favourite room in the house right now and, as I work from home, I often go and sit in there when he is at school for a few minutes of calm.

We chose white for the main colour for Jonnie’s bedroom – on the walls and furniture but I have added black to add graphic accents. Our property is Edwardian and for some reason although I have used bright white in other period properties, in ours it just doesn’t work. So we have used Farrow and Ball Wevet which is white with a tiny bit of black in. It fits well with the scandi look throughout our property.

Jonnie is age 5 and at school now so I have designed a little area where his desk by Les Gambettes is placed for him to sit and do his 5-10 minutes of homework each evening. I wanted this area to feel special and not a chore to sit in. I’m actually a little envious that my own desk area isn’t so smart. With letters and numbers playing an important part of the scheme naturally I wanted to incorporate some typography in the form of graphic prints and quote poster along with Arne Jacobsen Design Letter products. The globe on his desk is from Cissy Wears and the hanging alphabet on the wall from The Kid Who. We purchased the accompanying cups from Skandivis.

Storage throughout our house is key and in Jonnie’s room it is no exception. He has a built in floor to ceiling cupboard that was built by a local carpenter. This has shelves running right the way up and houses all sorts of toys and books. He also has an Ikea metal chest in white which provides invaluable storage.

What I love about his room being monochrome is that I can quickly transform it by adding colour in the form of toys and accessories such as the white cubebot from Scout & Co Kids and the Kukkia Gumball Machine. Introduce colourful new bedding like the set on his bed from Beau Loves and/or cushions and immediately you have a renewed scheme. I also feel it’s a great scheme that grows with the child into their teens if needs be.

The Tin Tin model was a find on a recent trip to Copenhagen and the prints from a mixture of brands. The Mickey print for example was from Cooee Design and the rest of them from Mini & Maximus apart from the Discotheque print which you can pick up from Violet & Percy. The wooden house shaped building blocks are by Antonio Serrano and are available at Peek & Pack.

We’re huge fans of cushions too with the Le Petit M lightbulb glow in the dark cushion purchased from Scandimini, the Garcon cushion from Hugo Loves Tiki, the Grid pear cushion and ice-cream cushions from inkibabinki and the personalised/ customised dolls from Studio NL and Young Double. The superhero face on his bed was a bespoke present from Bye Bye Birdie. We keep them all stored in this huge storage bag from La Cerise Sur Le Gateau available at Molly-Meg.

Jonnie is quickly growing out of his toddler bed and as a result will be moving into a larger spare room early next year. As we have chosen timeless pieces for his room we can simply transfer a lot of them to this new bedroom and equally easily transform this back into a study which it was before.

Images by Donna Howell