Wal Mart Your Zone $500.00 Gift Card Contest!

Note to new visitors-this contest has ended. Thank you.

For several months now, I have participated in WalMart's Beyond Eleven Moms, a collective of bloggers who partner with WalMart to give feedback on products already in stores and ideas about products that the company can offer in their stores.

Last month, I was approached to help test out a new product line in the stores. Many retailers offer room decor for youngsters and college students, but affordable furniture, bedding and decor for teens was hard to find. Enter Your Zone!

We were sent a $500.00 WalMart gift card and given a mission: redo a bedroom whatever way you like within that amount for your teen. If you asked me to do it anywhere else, I think I could buy a bed and a dresser and be done. The whole point of Your Zone is that your teen can change things without breaking the bank.

First up, let's find a bed! The beds the boys have are the bunk beds we bought at Ikea back when Chef graduated out of a crib. They are sturdy, but utilitarian. The fun began by checking out the website with both boys looking over my shoulder. As soon as we viewed the choices, both boys were clamoring for this one.

My feet approved of the choice of a loft bed. Why? Because the lack of usable floor space in either bedroom means that the kids bring their Legos into the living room to play with-and I inevitably end up stepping on and hurting myself. Okay, we've got a bed choice. (I should note that there are some incredible headboards that you can plug iPods into. Considering that each person in this house has an iPod, that option seemed pretty cool, but a loft bed was chosen and that's what we stuck with.

Next, what's going under that loft bed, since there's so much room. The dressers and nightstands we have are a light maple finish, purchased from Ashley when we moved to Florida. The goal with Your Zone is to find items that would match. The bed was $170, so we still had plenty of money to decorate. Game Teen liked the Gaming Center, but we don't allow the game systems out of the living room. Scratch that choice.

Next, Chef said a desk would be a good idea. There are currently two options, a walnut desk with a hutch and a light maple rolling desk. To keep things coordinated, this is what was chosen and put in our cart online. After joking that I was going to get pink, we ordered a black tractor chair from Site to Store, too. Another $126 spent, but we've got $204 left to find decorations.

How about seating? There was a cool wave lounger on the website, originally we put it in the cart and saved it. However, the next day we went to our local Wal Mart and didn't like the sturdiness of the one on display. Instead, the decision was made to switch to the Got Game Lounger. The reviews on Wal Mart's website were positive and the ability to rock the thing? A definite plus. $55.00 spent, balance $150.00.

Let's stop here. I've perused a couple of other retailer's websites and stores since WalMart asked me to shop Your Zone, and those four items would have cost me more than $500! I won't name the four I checked out, but they are all national chains.

Now that the furniture has been chosen, it's time to add some COLOR!!! For boys and girls, there are about a half dozen bedding choices, all reasonably priced. A twin comforter and sham set is only $29.50, and a twin sheet set is only $12.00. Even better, the palettes match some of the Mainstay body pillows we purchased for the kids a few months back. Since everything in the in-store collection coordinated, two sets of sheets went into our cart along with that comforter and sham set.

To round things out with the remaining 96.50, we got curtains(19.97), A very cool floor lamp seen in the previous post (19.97), a desk lamp (9.00), a gadget charging station for the desk (12.00), A pop it storage bin to use as a hamper (12.00), some light bulbs and the tax and we were just a hair over the $500.00.

Initially, the plan was to makeover my older son's Game Teen's room. He decided that he no longer wanted this generous gift because it involved him preparing his room to be made over. Instead, my younger son, Chef Jr, is the one whose room has been transformed. Strangely enough, both boys were interested in the exact same items. (Methinks there is a second room makeover in my future)

All the furniture is ready to assemble, which keeps the costs reasonable. Both Ed and I are handy with tools (which these come with, actually), but Ed took great pleasure in assembling all of it. From beginning to end, it took six hours to transform the room from this:
To this:


You want to know about the products, don't you? The bed went together fairly quickly, and while it does wobble a bit, it is extremely sturdy. There is a weight limit of 150 pounds, so football linebackers might want to chose another bed in the line. The desk has a weight limit, too-so no sitting on yours. It looks great and my son is looking forward to having a place to do his homework where he can shut the door. The big piece of advice is to keep all pieces in their bags until you need it, because they might be numbered on the bags instead of the piece.

Oh, if you do get the gaming chair-there's a zipper that doesn't have a tab. That's NOT the side you will put the frame inside! :)

The video will be added to the Your Zone site shortly, then I'll add it here, but in the interim, a vlog to tell you more:

Yes, you can WIN a Your Zone room makeover of your own! WalMart has graciously offered a $500.00 gift card to a reader of Suzanne Calling. To enter, you must write a blog post about WalMart's new Your Zone product line for teens, linking to WalMart's Your Zone section of their site AND to this post. THIS IS REQUIRED TO BE ELIGIBLE TO WIN!!! This is worth five entries. Make sure you put a link to your blog post in each of the five comments that will be your entries.

Additional entries can be earned AFTER the required blog post:
**Twitter this contest-one extra entry, up to three per day. (Put a link to your tweet in the entry comment)
**Follow me on Twitter @Suzannadanna and leave me a comment for an extra entry.
**Become a follower of Suzanne Calling for two extra entrie comments.
**Tell me about a product in the Your Zone line that you'd like for yourself or your teen. You can do this via comment once a day.

The contest runs from now until Wednesday, September 10th at 6pm Eastern time. You must be 18 or older to enter and be a United States resident to be eligible. Winner will be drawn via Random.org and a vlog will be posted with the winner's information. Winner will be sent an email and has 48 hours to claim their prize.

NOTE: This contest has closed. Congratulations to Baba, the winner of the room makeover!

If you'd like more chances to win, or aren't a blogger, please check out my friend's blogs and increase your chances to win :
A Happy Hippy Mom
Three Different Directions
Is It Naptime Yet?

Isn't it time your teen has a Zone of their own?