Spiced Up Room for a Sparkly Girl

Hi friends,
Finally, I am so excited to share with you our secret room make-over. As I mentioned in a previous blog, our kids were spending some awesome time with my husband's mom and family a couple of hours from us during their fall break. They were gone for 10 days! That was a long time not to kiss their plump warm cheeks. This allowed my husband and I to achieve three goals: (1) travel for business trips, (2) have a quiet weekend alone together at home to celebrate our eighth wedding anniversary, and (3) create a secret spiced up room for our sparkly little girl.

Truth be told, there were several reasons why we spiced up our daughter's room without her input and her knowledge:
1. She's been begging us for over a year to 'spice up' her room. She's observed us spice up her brother's room as well as many other rooms in our house. We really hadn't touched hers since we moved in.
2. Okay, here's the real truth, her vision of how she wanted her room 'spiced up' and my vision did NOT meet. Nowhere did our visions meet. So, if I'm really honest with myself, I mostly 'spiced up' her room for me. Otherwise, that little girl's room would have looked very different than it does now if I did want she wanted. Perhaps, someday, I will grow as an individual and let my daughter express her individuality through her room. I will try to work on this.
3. It's a heck of a lot easier to paint a room and make major changes when the person isn't there.
4. We thought it would be an awesome surprise to do this for her without her having a single clue. Too bad we weren't home when she arrived back home with her grandma and brother and walked into her room.

Okay, let's get on with this. Here's what we were dealing with. This room worked for us over two years ago when we moved in. After all, the house already had a little girl's room. But, somehow over those two years the love I was feeling for the room had disappeared. It might be the peeling princess wallpaper border. Maybe it was the sponge painted purple paint. Or it could have been the chaotic feeling I got being in her room with the combination of the peeling princess border and sponge painted purple paint.

Before:








Now:

 

 

Okay, so here's a breakdown of the room:
1. My painter, aka husband Steve, removed the peeling princess border and painted the room a pale soft pink with a hint of lavender in it. Instantly the room felt calmer. Ahhh!
2. We replaced a faded purple shade with a similar hot pink shade that the other light had. Target.
3. I removed the sweet yellow gingham ottoman that I first repurposed for Bryce's room when she was a baby. I still remember being pregnant and decorating her gingham yellow, pink, and green room. I found a fun graphic bright green (from the quilt she already had in her room) and hot pink print.
4. I also made two small pillows from this fabric.
5. I took down her nursery pink gingham curtains and purchased inexpensive Target white ruffly curtains and added a fun hot pink pom pom accent along the edges.
6. My electrician, aka husband Steve, finally put up Bryce's old purple chandelier from her toddler room after I added white strings of seashells to the chandelier.
7. I added some fun graphic pink and green scrapbook paper to existing frames and also added some new black and white photos of Bryce and family at the beach.
8. I painted white starfish that were left over from our wedding hot pink, bright green, and aqua blue to accent the room.
9. I repainted Bryce's headboard a bright green. I found this wooden headboard at the dump (yes! the dump! and I actually picked it up and put in my car) over 15 years ago. The headboard has been painted many different colors.

Since the photos were taken I've already changed:
1. The cardboard/sticker project chandelier hanging from the ceiling has been moved to over the dresser. It looks great there!

Still to do:
1. Bryce still wants a surfboard (girlie colors of course) hanging from the wall. I need to check out Pottery Barn Kids and Etsy for this. I like this idea! It correlates with her quilt which she's had for years.

What do you think? Do you like the changes? What are you changing or 'spicing up' in your home?

Next on our list is moving our current guest room to my husband's large office. The two rooms are swapping spaces. Pros of the move: our guests will have considerable more room and a quieter space and my husband will have an office that is easily accessible.

Thanks for joining me today friends. Please let me know how you're doing and what decorating projects you've got going on.

Happy decorating,
Megan
meganlawbrewer@yahoo.com