I may be biased, but our bike room is pretty sweet. It’s functional, well-organized, and CLEAN! It took a lot of work to get there. Take a look-see for yourself:
Before, walking into the room would raise my blood pressure…eek! But now…it’s just so niiiice!
And the bikes have a nice home now. Awww! Look at them. All sittin’ up there enjoying the view.
So much less clutter. Much more efficient use of the space. Even the bookshelf got some love!
But part of what makes it so great, in my opinion, is all the little touches and artwork that I incorporated into the room.
BIKE ART!
So I’m going to start off with my favorite thing in the room. I used paint to stamp the bike, then I drew the balloons and colored them in with chalk. What do you think?! I think it’s adorable!
Hand stamped with paint…
…then draw and color the balloons…
And voila!
I attempted to make my own canvas painting. But I quickly learned that stamps do not work well on canvases. Oh well…
But stamps DO work on regular paper. And look great when you frame them!
And here’s a nice bike picture frame on the desk-bench. I didn’t have any good photos to use for this, so I decided to use the material that came with our Monkeysee High-Visibility Reflective Harness. A perfect fit!
We, of course, must display all of our cycling-related books on the desk-bench!
…as well as cycling-related magazines!
And up on the wall here, you can see all sorts of goodies. The “co-exist bike/car” bumper stickers. More Monkeysee cards. The cowbell I use to cheer J on when he races. There are also buttons (purchased from the Heritage Bike Store in Chicago) on the hanging organizer.
Weird things inside the magnetic containers. This is an eraser set with some eraser poop….thanks mom!
A cute little owl bead. Too cute to use for anything other than staring and smiling.
A pickle.
A cool poster of Kurt Russel for DEATH PROOF
Some cool owls hanging above a map of Chicago!
Yet another Monkeysee picture, hanging next to the map — they just look so good on display!
A cool bike ornament, also hanging next to the map
A little piece from Home Goods. Hate the beige border–that will be painted another color soon
Another little piece picked up at Home Goods. It’s the first thing that catches your eye when you walk into the room, which is pretty cool
So there you have it! Our new bike room is finally complete, and we couldn’t be happier about it. We catch each other walking in there for no reason and just looking around. What could be better than something that even further inspires us to think about and admire cycling? Not much, in our opinion.
Thanks to everyone who followed along our progress and left supportive comments! I’d LOVE to know what you think of the final product! Do you have a favorite art piece that I posted here today? Share your thoughts!
Thanks for sharing your progress. The final result looks great: neat, efficient, comfortably bike-oriented, and just enough whimsey for that happy feeling. I like your bike/balloon art, and my favorite piece of art is the bike-inside-the-gear metal ornament. (The French, BTW, spell it “voila,” just in case you need that for some TdF context.
Aw thanks!!
that’s what we were going for!
And crap! I realized it was voila after I wrote it and forgot to fix it! But thank you for pointing it out. It made me laugh, too, because I’ve never actually said it with a “w” sound, so I don’t know why that was my “go to” guess.
Anyway, thanks for commenting!!
I love how it turned out!!! The bike art is fantastic…..and I love the little magnetic containers filled with random things. I totally need to do this at my work =) Awesome job!
Thanks!!!! Yea I love them. Very cheap and Ikea, and very sturdy!
Nicely done!! Congrats on completing the job … i like the bike ornament a lot and the last one from the Home Goods place. BTW – we are having the first ROS planning meeting in a couple weeks. Our 6th year in the New River Valley of Virginia!
Thanks!!! Yea I like those too!!
Oh, excellent! Yes I really I can do the one in Chicago this year–lots of support needs to be shown for cyclist safety! Hope the meeting goes well.
I love the bike art, particularly the stamp pictures. Did you buy the stamp or make it yourself? I love being creative like that and you’ve given me ideas of doing something similar…
Thanks!!!
The bike stamp was purchased. eBay I think. But etsy has a lot, too!
Definitely post any artwork you create!
Thanks. I’ll have a look on etsy/ebay and see what I find. I particularly love knitting, and I’ve been thinking about seeing if I can knit myself a little bike. If I ever work out how to do it, I’ll definitely post a picture of it.
That would be adorable!!!!
Yeah! Bike space! We have been doing something similar. My Dad-in-law kindly let us have a big space in his huge garage in order to store our multitude of bike parts. My husband already had 4 bikes (plus loads of spare frames and parts), I moved to Oz with 3 (and acquired a forth in the process) and he brought back 2 from the UK too. Plus Dad had one too! The space is mostly vertical so we put up a really high shelf for the bike boxes, touring stuff and “treasure”, a row of hooks underneath for the stored bikes (they hang by the wheels and I can actually stand under it) and more shelves and cubbyholes for the spareparts, tools and useful things we use on a day to day basis. Its not quite as pretty but very functional and feels good. In fact I am planning to spend the whole day down there building up the acquired bike, renovating dads bike and making a shopping list in order to buy MORE new bikes and build a polo bike!
Oh very cool!!! Love that you have a lot of bikes and parts
Hey, if it works it works, right? That’s really what matters. Thanks for sharing!