Riverside Retreat Bunk Room Design

Are you ready for the wildest room at the Riverside Retreat?! We are not holding back with the design of the “bunk room”—a bonus area just off the living room:

We decided to turn this space into a multi-purpose lounge, media room, and sleeping area for four, bringing the house's total occupancy to ten. Because the Riverside Retreat is geared towards small groups and families, we figured this will be the cool spot the kids will want to hang out in. It is close enough for parents to keep an eye on, but can also feel private with sliding doors to close it off from the living room:

The rest of the house is pretty eclectic with an “earthy, jungle, tropical boho” vibe that leans more sophisticated for the most part, but for this room we are letting loose and just having fun with the design. It will be the statement-making Instagram worthy photo op part of the home—the space that will make it stand out from the rest. Every good vacation rental needs that wow factor, right?

Once upon a time, the Bunk Room was a single car garage that was later converted into a long, narrow room that did not seem to serve a purpose…

We replaced the tile with durable Pergo laminate, added a window and built a huge custom reading nook:

Then just last month, we DIY'd a loft bed on the other side of the room:

And that brings us to today! We are waiting on a few more pieces and expect the room to be done by the end of the month, but let us talk about the star of the show—the green wall! I teamed up with Afloral after searching far and wide for the well suited lush greenery to cover a large space. Their faux fern mat was the well suited solution:

Each mat is a 19.5″ square and they lock together, creating a seamless ivy wall effect. You've seen these before in fancy hotels, restaurants and weddings—they make for strong photo backdrops and I know our guests will have plenty of fun with it!

There are many different ways to use these mats, but we decided to go with a more permanent installation and secure them directly to the wall (we have no plans to 'redecorate' anytime soon!) This is how we did it:

Materials:

Fern mats (we needed approx 50 to cover ~160 square feet)

Self drilling drywall anchors

Self drilling stud anchors (for plaster part of the wall)

#8 Fender Washers

Concrete Screws

Tools:

Scissors

Hammer drill (for concrete part of our wall)

Impact driver (for Tapcons on concrete part of wall)

Tape measure

Pencil

The sheets are designed for a unfussy installation, with a plastic mesh backing that the greenery is attached to.

Each sheet has little tabs which lock together:

For a well suited fit around objects, the plastic mesh is easy to cut down to the exact size you need.

To attach the sheets to the wall, we used anchors and washers to hold the mesh in place. Our wall was a little tricky because it is a mix of plaster (original house wall), drywall (where the previous owners blocked in an interior door), and concrete (it used to be a garage so the bottom two feet are solid concrete). We had to use a different type of fastener on each section:

Concrete: concrete screws

Drywall: self drilling drywall anchors

Plaster: self drilling zinc drywall/stud anchors (the plastic version does not make it through the plaster without breaking)

Lucas captured a time lapse of the install which you can watch in my Instagram stories—starting from the top left corner to allow gravity to help:

The first step is to mark and install the anchors in the wall. He used two anchors on each sheet for the top row. With the sheet held in place, he secured the screw and washer on top of the mesh to pull it tight.

This step was repeated for each sheet across the top, attaching them together with the locking tabs.

For the second row, the anchors were attached where the mats overlapped, then the washer pulled all four pieces tight to the wall. This process was continued from left to right and top to bottom for the whole wall.

When working around obstacles, it is as unfussy as cutting the mesh backing to the size/shape you need. He had to be careful to use the side of the mesh with the correct tabs to attach to the piece next to it.

Once the sheets are all installed, you have to fluff the pieces so the lines between sheets blend in. At this stage in this picture, you can see the top had been fluffed, but the bottom hadn't yet:

It is an easy beginner level install, but it does take time. For our 13.5'w x 12'h wall, it took Lucas about 7 hours over two days.

Definitely something you do not see every day!

This is how it looks now…

But it is not finished yet! The focal point of this room will be a neon sign centered on the wall. I enlisted the help of Amped & Co and worked with them on a custom design, which we are finalizing now…

Can you picture it??

In the meantime, we have been pulling together the rest of the elements for this room, like our floating TV stand, round jute rug, and live edge table set.

One of the most important pieces we had to select was the sleeper sofa. It had to be small enough to fit inside the nook under our loft bed, in a durable kid-friendly fabric, and (most importantly) comfortable for our guests to sleep in. After a ton of searching to find one that ticked all the boxes, I decided on the Oneira 'Deep Sea Blue' sofa from Article:

I have worked with Article before and was impressed with the quality of their furniture, so I knew I could rely them again with a sofa that had had to be just as functional as it was stylish. The memory foam mattress was a big selling point for me, as we want to ensure all of our guests get a good night's sleep (even if they are on the sofa!)

We have velvet fabric all throughout the house (living room sofa, dining room chairs, twin beds, curtains) so it fits right in with the rest of our decor, and the neutral gray-blue does not compete with the green focal wall.

Because the Bunk Room is so narrow and there is not plenty of space for seating, we had to get creative. I found these inexpensive patterned ottomans on Amazon which will tuck underneath the floating TV stand when not in use.

I also could not pass up the opportunity to add this hanging chair I found for under $50… is it genuinely a jungle room unless you can swing from ropes? I think not.

Lucas spent some time in the attic reinforcing the joists and installing heavy duty eye hooks to knot the rope around. The weight capacity is rated at 265 lbs and this baby is not going anywhere!

To take it a step further, I picked up a couple of these fern and eucalyptus garlands from Afloral and secured them to the ropes.

Now it is a jungle party!

Last but not least… we have got something special planned for this empty wall. It is the first thing you see when you enter the room, and visible from the living room/front door:

Originally the plan was to turn it into a giant chalkboard with 'Welcome to the Riverside Retreat', but we decided that could get pretty messy and we'd risk our text getting scribbled over/erased. Instead, I tracked down one of the most talented local mural artists here in Tampa to paint the design, and this is the mockup he sent:

Pretty cool, right? He's scheduled to start next week and I'll be sharing updates on my Instagram if you want to follow along!

Just waiting on a few more pieces and finishing touches before the big reveal, and in the meantime we are still working on pulling together the Tropical Oasis bedroom, the third and final bedroom, replacing the old doors, updating some of the electrical, and a few exterior updates. I'll be sharing everything here on the blog over the next month so do not go anywhere!