It all started at the end of last August, when the guest room still looked like this:
We'd been trying for awhile to get pregnant, and my thought was that once a new baby was on the way, we'd move Rowan from the nursery into the guest room/office, since the nursery is so small that a twin bed would barely fit in there (if at all). I wasn't sure how to introduce the idea to her, given that she was completely happy in her crib in the nursery. Thankfully, one day, she waltzed into the guest room and announced, "I want this to be my room!" It's always better when kids think big transitions are their idea, so I jumped on the opportunity and said, "Awesome! Let's plan it! What do you want it to look like?"
She actually had a big hand in the room's design, which was so much fun to do with her! Her main requests for her big kid room were: pink and yellow walls; glitter on the walls; a big kid bed; one pink lamp and one yellow lamp (harder to find than you'd think, omg); and pictures of her family (aww). We were looking through Pinterest one day and she added one more request - a white tent over her bed.
This all sounded easy enough, although I was a little wary about the pink and yellow walls. I wasn't sure how to pull that off without it looking...I don't know, oppressively fluorescent? And wouldn't pink and yellow clash with each other? Luckily, I stumbled on this picture from the Land of Nod website, and it sparked a paint idea:
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| Source |
I LOVED that diagonal paint swath, and I figured it would allow for enough white space to offset any mega-bright colors. Plus, as much as I've never really appreciated pink, I am super, super into the dusty rose that just happens to be trendy right now. I could make that work with a mellow shade of yellow, right?!
So I got to work, first selling most of the furniture from the guest room and moving all our office stuff down to the basement (as if we have room down there for it, but whatever). Then I primed the walls...with a little help:
Once the walls were ready, I got stuck for awhile trying to figure out the optimal paint design. I used painter's tape to test out a couple ideas, but nothing was really gelling. I ended up having two of my friends (who both have amazing eyes for design...thanks, Kendal and Katie!!) come over to help me plan the paint patterns, and also to choose the right shades of pink and yellow. Then I kicked Rowan and J.J. out of the house one weekend day and spent way longer than I'd anticipated taping everything off.
I used a laser level to get the straightest lines possible, which was super tricky around the windows, because the window moldings cut the laser line off. Taping everything pretty much took longer than the actual painting did. That was super frustrating - but totally worth it. The design ended up looking perfect, with flawless lines (tip: rub a damp washcloth along the painter's tape and let it dry before you paint - makes for extra-crisp lines with no bleeding). It was especially worth it when Rowan came back that evening and saw her "pink and lellow" walls for the first time.
Unnnnnfortunately, this face was quickly followed by, "But I wanted the WHOLE THING to be pink and lellowwww!" Meaning, she was not happy with parts of the walls staying white. -_- I mitigated her disappointment by showing her that the pink paint is actually glitter paint. The glitter is awesome - you just add a packet right into your paint can, stir it up, paint away, and voila, you get a subtle sparkle all over the wall. It's super hard to photograph, but I got a (admittedly mediocre) video of it:
Rowan also loved being my construction assistant. She helped build her new bookshelf, her new bed (a birthday present from Grandpa), and her new double glider (a Christmas present from Gramma, which is awesome and big enough to fit all three of us - soon, all four of us).
Oh, and she loved "helping" J.J. measure when we hung the wood cornices this past weekend:
But anyway - enough with the boring descriptions. How about some more pictures? I'll go around the room clockwise, starting from when you look in the doorway. (Ignore that light on the ceiling...yes, it's a porch light; yes, it's from the previous owners; yes, Ikea discontinued the light I'd planned on replacing that one with; yes, I'm too lazy to find another one that I really like, so yes, it stays for now.)
Aaaand because I'm a total dork, here's a video with a 360-degree tour:
I'll list all the sources at the end of the post, but some details about the details: She chose her bedding from a few photos I'd pinned for her, and I looove her comforter. It's super cute, and it helped guide my paint color choices. (Although it's possible I started out with a different shade of yellow that looked too orange and eventually re-painted with this shade. POSSIBLE.) Oh, and just so you know, to fulfill Rowan's wish for one pink lamp and one yellow lamp, I had to buy two pink lamps and spray paint one of them yellow. It was impossible to find affordable lamps that came in both pink and yellow! I did score some awesome white lampshades from Target that are even glittery, much to Rowan's delight.
I made the canopy over her bed using some sheer curtains, a large embroidery hoop, and some battery-operated LED twinkle lights from Amazon (which I neglected to take a picture of, but trust me, they're up there!).
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| Her nightstand drawer is where she stores her ever-growing comic book collection. Only Robin is allowed to read them with her. |
Per her request for pictures of her family, I got a bunch of free square prints from Parabo Press (I only paid shipping, which was like $8 or something). I don't love the way they're arranged right now - I should've done them in straight lines instead of following the diagonal paint line - but I can't bring myself to take the time to rearrange them, so there you have it.
I made the paintings over the bookshelf, with Rowan's guidance. She asked for specific lyrics from "This Little Light of Mine" and "Bushel and a Peck", and she very much wanted a picture of Baby Kermit, who was her obsession back in the fall, when she pretended she had an Invisible Kermit in her hand at all times. She doesn't really care about him anymore but claims she still wants the painting.
I also DIY'ed the cornices over her windows. I didn't want to do full curtains in her room because I had visions of her pulling them down while playing in her bed at night (accurate...she's already snapped the roller shade up while messing around and scared the crap out of herself), so I went with cheap blackout roller blinds from Lowe's and livened them up with the wood cornices - again, props to Katie and Kendal for the inspiration on those. I followed these instructions (found via Pinterest) to build them. The wood is stained with Minwax's Classic Gray stain, which ended up matching the bookshelf and glider perfectly. A pretty easy project overall!
And yeah, I chose to leave her closet doors off. Remember how I removed them to make the guest room closet into our office?
I wanted to leave the doors off for a few reasons. First, I love love love the way her dressers turned out. I initially thought I'd wallpaper the back of the closet wall, but when I did a test run, it just didn't look right. Plus, I was going to have to buy like double the wallpaper I'd already bought to cover the whole back wall, so I nixed the idea and put it on the drawer fronts instead. Second, those closet doors are stored in the basement somewhere and are still the plain orange-y wood color that all our other doors originally were, and I didn't feel like finding them, painting them, and reattaching them. Third, I considered hanging a curtain over it (like we did in the nursery), but I really just wanted her dressers to be visible! I think they're my favorite part of the room. Maybe I'll hang a curtain eventually, but I'm happy with it for now.
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| My friend Katie made that awesome macrame wall hanging! She's one of the most talented people I know - check out her Etsy shop for adorable bonnets. |
All of her clothes fit into the six dresser drawers with room to spare, although I do hang up some of her dresses. I use the white bins on the top shelf to store the clothes she's about to grow into and the ones she's just grown out of. That gray-brown box on the shelf below the white bins is her memory box, which is basically where I throw all the stuff that would go into a scrapbook, if I were one to scrapbook. Which I'm not. So she has a box.
And, finally, just a couple more befores and afters, since this post doesn't already have a million pictures:
Before / After
Before / After
Before / After
All in all, Rowan's big kid bedroom turned out even better than I'd hoped. It's cozy, colorful, and so totally Rowan. Plus, I think it'll grow with her for awhile instead of needing major updates in just a couple years. Not to mention that it was a nerdy dream come true to plan the room with her. Hope you love it as much as we do!
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Source list:
:: Bookshelf (from Target, although I'm not seeing the color I have there anymore...)
:: Paintings over bookshelf (aka my Etsy shop)
:: Frames for paintings (Ikea RIBBA)
:: Double glider chair in dark taupe from Walmart (the beautiful quilt on the chair was made by Gramma)
:: Nightstand (Windham Side Table from Target's Threshold collection)
:: Bed (from Amazon)
:: Sheets (from Target)
:: Comforter (Land of Nod's Fly Away Quilt)
:: White pillow, pink flower pillow, lamps, fabric bins (can't seem to find the same bins, but they're just pink bins from Target's Pillowfort collection, like the rest of these items)
:: Instagram prints (from Parabo Press)
:: Dressers (ASKVOLL from Ikea)
:: Removable wallpaper on drawer fronts (from Walls Need Love)
:: Rug (Rugs USA's Tuscan Moroccan Shag)
:: Blackout roller shades (from Lowe's)
:: Glitter for paint (from Target)
:: Paint colors:
-- darker pink (wall behind bookshelf) = Riviera Rose from Olympic
-- yellow = Banana Mania from Behr
-- lighter pink (closet area) = Pink Sangria from Olympic
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