My Daughter's Room Remodel (photo essay)

Photo Essay Contest

For 2 weeks at the end of July, my Mom was here for a visit.  While she was here, we redid my children's bedrooms.  We did my daughter Shea's room first.

She decided that she wanted the room painted purple, but she wanted other stuff in the room to be pink, lime green, and blue as well.  So, we took stock of what we already had, then we went shopping - for paint, ideas, and stuff to make it pretty and fun for a 10 year old girl.  And this is the result.

 Ok, first things first.... we had to empty the room of everything except the bed so that we could paint.  This is what the empty room looked like before we started.  Pretty boring.  And as you can tell, it's a pretty small room - kind of long and narrow, but not very big at all - so we were (of course) dealing with limited space.

This, of course, is Shea letting us know what she thinks of the very boring white room!  And of course she was pretty bored at first because she wanted to help paint but had to wait till all the trim was taped...

Finally, we got to actually paint - and we made the shortest person do the baseboards (hehe!) while Mom and I did the corners and around the trim...

 ... and she did a really good job too!

Once the baseboards were done, Mom and I took turns rolling the walls....

.... while Shea helped with her paintbrush!

And finally we had PURPLE walls - YAY!!  
We added the second coat later in the day to finish it off.

After the room was painted, we moved outside to the furniture.  Since we were on a budget (and this is a kids room after all) we chose to use spraypaint and craft paint, then spray on polyurythane for the furniture.  We did 3 large pieces of furniture for her room in assorted colors that she chose.

This is her secretary style desk.  Though very nicely done to begin with, it wasn't very kid friendly in its dark shade of blue and off-white rose stencils. 

So, we spray painted it a slightly darker shade of purple than her walls.        

Since you could still see the outline of the stencils through the layer of paint, I took craft paint in pink and lime green and repainted them.  I also added a couple of blue stenciled butterflies to the bottom door to round off the color scheme that she wanted. 

Then, for extra girlie kid appeal, we added some fairy dust to the top.  How??  No, we didn't call Tinkerbell!  (Haha!)  We got a vial of very fine glitter (it's actually called "fairy dust") at the craft store.  Then we sprinkeled it on the wet paint.  When the paint was dry we sealed it with clear spray polyurythane so that it would not rub off.  The result was a fun addition to her room in her favorite colors.  And, yes, she loves it!

While I was finishing up the desk, my Mom was working on another piece of furniture - the bookcase.  It was pretty beat up.  It was white, but covered in nicks, scratches, and kid "graffiti".  The inside we spraypained lime green, but we knew that wouldn't work for the outside.  Rather than the thin spraypaint, we decided to use something thicker for the outside of it to cover the scratches and stuff - the bit of purple left from the walls!  Then we changed our minds and decided the top needed to be a different color - so we painted over the purple with blue craft paint and added fairy dust to the top of it too.  And to round off the color scheme again, Mom painted the front edges pink with craft paint.  The finished bookcase was yet another bright and kid friendly piece to add to the room.

The dresser was the biggest piece of furniture we needed to redo.  It too was white, but very well worn.  Not only did it need a serious paint job, but a few repairs as well.  We decided it would be too much purple in such a small space if we painted it purple too, so we debated which of the other colors to paint it.  In the end, well, we added another color for some contrast.  After covering the mirror, we spray painted it silver.

The silver looked really neat, and we liked it, but it didn't cover the problems on the top that we wanted it to.  So...... we painted the top with 2 thick coats of purple craft paint - and that did the trick!  Oh - and fairy dust to the top after the second coat to finish it off!

 The drawers we knew would have the same problem, so we painted them with craft paint as well - two drawers of each color - lime green, bright pink, and blue!

  Once the base coats were dried, we took the dresser and drawers inside to add the finishing touches. 

 Tinkerbell stickers around the mirror and pink on the inside edge finished off the dresser mirror.
  I helped Shea paint a purple fairy on each drawer using a stencil to finish those off.

 The finished drawers and a closeup of the fairy dusted dresser top.

So we moved the furniture back into the room and hung the truquoise curtain and purple butterfly curtain rod on the window. 

Then we had fun making fairy dust trails!  Mom took the can of silver spray paint and made light trails on the walls.  Then she sprayed the trails with glitter paint.  As you can see from the photo, we had fairy dust (and spray paint fumes) EVERYWHERE!!

After the trails were done, we added some stars to the wall with the silver spray paint and a small paintbrush - and we glued little jewels (we got in the craft department of Wal-Mart) into the centers for added sparkle.  And of course, we couldn't leave the inspiring fairy out, so we finished decorating the walls with Tinkerbell wall clings/stickers.  Shea had lots of fun with this part!

..... But then so did Mom and Grandma!

We were, of course, quite pleased with ourselves and our creativity - and most importantly, Shea is very happy about her finished walls.

A little break to clean up the dust and jewels dropped on the floor....

And we moved in the smaller pieces - bookcase, desk, and....

 ..... crates!  We chose stackable crates rather than a toy box since she is getting to an age where shelves would better serve her and her "stuff".  It took us several stores to find the assorted colors that would go in her room.

A few of the items for her room she got for her birthday, which was right in the middle of the remodel project.  One of those items was a pink beaded hanging chandelier lamp.  This is Grandma "the Handywoman" hanging the lamp in the corner of the bedroom.

Of course we all thought it was really cute once it was hung.......

.... and then we turned it on!

After oooohing and aaahhhhing over the lamp, we got a little help from our guys to put a big hole in the ceiling to hang the bed canopy.

Then we arranged and pinned a string of butterflies around the top, and voila!  A bed fit for a fairy princess!

Well, after we actually made the bed of course - and let the princess herself arrange all her pillows and babies and stuffed critters.

We threw down a fuzzy lime green rug that the pets all took a liking to, then took a look around at the results of our creative handiwork.

Even Daddy decided he liked the room and tried to take a nap with "Princess" Shea. 

Of course, she kicked him out of the bed a few minutes later so she could go to sleep in her new room!

Some of the finishing touches we have done since then are the Tinkerbell ribbon curtain on the door, hanging one of her porcelain dolls beside the mirror, and hanging a shoe holder on the inside of the closet door for belts and purses/bags as well as whatever else she needs to store there.

We still have a few things to do to finish off the room, like adding a few shelves and hanging pictures up, but this is basicall the finished project.  She is pretty thrilled with her new room!