We surprised our daughter with her dream bedroom! A couple of months ago our now 6 year old told us her room was “Not very decorated,” and she wanted to put a picture on her wall. We let her. We grabbed an old frame, she colored a picture and we hung it up on her, admittedly, very plain wall. That is what prompted this huge surprise. The day before her 6th birthday, we sent both our daughters to Gammy’s house to spend the day and night. My husband and I flipped the entire room in one day; two coats of paint and all!
She already had a gorgeous bed set given to us by my sister. We found the perfect purple paint at Lowe’s, and I had been taking weekly trips to the Goodwills in our area. I was looking for anything that screamed “I am 6 years old!”
Start scrolling to see what I found!!!
The top 4 things I wanted for the kids’ bedrooms:
- ✖️Walk in closet
- ✖️Lots of natural light
- ✖️Built in closet system
- ✖️Window wall built-ins
Picks with our contractor:
Flooring:
The carpet was purchased from Royal Flooring for those that are local. We purchased the Royal Charity pad for under the carpet and we get so many comments on how “Soft” our carpet is. The way the sales rep at Royal Flooring explained the pads to use is this: The most common is “Good” which they sell, but then they also have “Better” aka the Royal Charity Pad and “Best” aka the Royal Courage pad. We chose to have the “Better” option installed in all carpeted areas of the house except the main living room where we splurged for “Best.”
Mystique
color Pearl Ash
Royal Charity carpet pad underneath
Paint:
As part of the makeover we took our Pure White walls by Sherwin Williams and painted them Purple Hibiscus found at Lowe’s. We did an eggshell finish on the walls. The ceiling and all the trim are still Pure White by Sherwin-Williams in different finishes.
Window:
I thought I would add in a side note about the kids’ bedroom windows. We have black frames on all the windows on the outside of our house. In the bedrooms we did not want the windows framed in black because we did not know how we would style the kid rooms. Turns out you can purchase windows framed in black on the exterior and white on the interior ANNNNDDDDD it is actually cheaper than having a black frame on both sides.
Our own picks:
Lighting:
It is what it is… I wanted a flush mount white fan with a light and no remote. Turns out that is not a popular choice and I had to get a fan with a remote if I truly wanted the flush mount. Fans in the bedrooms are a necessity for our family but interior designers hate them. I received some advise from a designer that the fan should “Blend in” on the ceiling. Meaning it should match the ceiling color and be as plain as can be (hence the flush mount). I decided to take this advise and compromise my wish for a remote free fan. In general these fans are not too bad. There is a delay in flipping the switch on and them actually turning on. I’m not sure if this is a wiring issue or something with the fan itself. I do like that you can change the temperature of the light and dim the lighting. We have the light on a soft yellow light and dimmed so at night we can keep our bodies in nighttime mode. We could change it during the day but instead just open the curtains for the natural light. The fan can rotate in reverse during the cold months which we currently have it doing in the nursery.
Home Depot 52in Fan with Light
Bedroom “Hardware:”
I want to rave about the curtain rod for a second. It is a double rod so I have boring room darkening curtains on the inner rod and pretty long blush curtains on the outer rod. The rod was super easy to install. The length options were fabulous so I bet there will be one that fits your window. They also have more finishes available other than white.
To save money on our new build we had them leave all the closets empty and we designed and put in our own shelving. I know wire racks are not glamorous but in a kid bedroom I didn’t mind. My mom and I cut and racked our own design. I highly recommend going to The Habitat For Humanity Restore and you will find the wire shelves and all the accessories for super cheap. They always seem to be for sale on Facebook Marketplace too. This bedroom closet is the second largest of all the bedrooms. We left one side of the closet free of shelving and are currently storing all the large baby Items our daughter is too little for right now.
SHOP HER BEDROOM
Similar items to what I found at Goodwill👇🏻
Similar items to what I found at Goodwill👇🏻
Similar items to what I found at Goodwill👇🏻
Her room is so cool with the lights off. The glowing stars were a gift from her Grandparents a couple years ago. She had them all over her walls prior to the makeover so them being up on the ceiling added to the surprise! They power up from the ceiling light being on in her room or from the sunlight that shines through her window. They last for about 15mins once the light source is gone. Enough time to star gaze and then go to sleep.
The neon “LOVE” sign was in the Target $1-$5 section a couple years ago. Though I did see an identical one at the @Home Store so I linked it.
Let’s see what else is lighting up… Her clock was a hand-me-down from my sister. I wanted Briar to use a clock for time reference and maybe the alarm in the future. This one is nice because the light turns off when the commotion is over. It will light up with a tap or if it senses motion by the desk.
The curtain lights were a Goodwill find. They are battery operated but I did find the same company makes a USB set and they are controlled by remote.
We just couldn’t leave Elsa behind. Briar has had a few Frozen obsessed periods of time in her life. Last Christmas was one of them, so Santa gifted her Elsa. She is great quality and peeled off the wall with no damage so we could paint. After the paint dried we put her back up and she sticks just as well as she did the day we opened her.
Briar’s dresser was a hand-me-down from my sister. It is such a gorgeous bed set. If you want to try and find pieces of it I was able to locate some from local sellers and small furniture shops online. You just need to search “Ashley’s Catalina Antique White” My sister gifted us the bed headboard, the dresser with an attached mirror, and two night stands. We added the butterflies to both the mirrors in this room. Briar had the butterflies in her room at our old house. They are elegant little things.
This Jewelry box was something my mom had stored away in her basement. We are not sure how she ended up with it but she has had it there for years. While we were decluttering she offered it to Briar. I did not think much of it until I looked it up to link in the blog. I was surprised to find that this jewelry box runs about $70 and up. Personal opinion: it is not worth that kind of money. Especially in a little girl’s room where self crafted bracelets and teddy bear earrings fill the drawers.
This is where the money was spent for this room flip. Rumi and friends cost a pretty penny. When Briar first brought up that her room was not decorated and she wanted to hang a picture on her wall, I asked her what else she would want in her room if we decorated it. Her thoughts were to have purple walls and Kpop Demon Hunters. For my search I was trying to find the Huntrix gals the same size as the Elsa wall decal we already had. This was the only one I found that was about 42inches tall and would go on and off the wall easily.
Our daughter is the queen of trinkets. She could go to a garage sale and buy all the “Old lady” knick knacks and think she won the jackpot. For the sake of this room flip we slimmed down her collection. We have not gotten rid of them yet. The stuff is just hidden for awhile. If she never asks about it all then it will eventually go bye bye. I think we are already in the clear though because since these photos were taken she has already collected new knick knacks as birthday gifts. These three shelves are filling up fast! That was the point of putting these shelves in. As soon as I found them at Goodwill I knew what we would use them for. Heck as soon as I found them I started looking for my own trinkets of choice for her room too. After a few different trips to thrifts stores I found this ice cream cone and saucer set, which I planted a snake plant in (very easy to care for and they are known to detox a space). I found a little flower candle, a purple ceramic boot, and a horse piggy bank.
The most notable compliment from this side of the room is that we painted the shelves the same color as the wall. Family and friends are loving it!
Also can we get a pat-on-the-back for keeping this fish alive for a whole year!! (The fish was Briar’s bday gift last year from Gammy) I give kudos to our sink water’s reverse osmosis system haha.
If you grew up in the 90s and early 2000s you might remember bedroom walls covered in posters and magazine pages or actual printed photos of friends and family taped up. That is what I pictured when I thought about doing a canvas collage. I wanted it to be mismatched and random things she likes. What better place to find these than a thrift store. Children’s bedrooms are always changing as they grow so there were so many canvas each time I went. It was just a matter of finding the canvases that matched Briar’s loves.
I personally thought the flamingo basket was cute. Not sure how Briar feels about flamingos but it had four sections and was super cheap so I purchased it. I figured I could fill each section with some cool markers to make it more appeasing to her. Which I did!! These metallic outline markers are pretty cool! I filled another section of the flamingo basket with chalk markers because of what I am about to tell you next…
This computer is a dud and it had been sitting in our basement for quite sometime. During that time Briar used it to pretend to go to work, to play library, and be a teacher. We decided to move it to her room since we were going to switch out one of the night stands with Rob’s childhood desk. We cut off all the cords and spray painted everything hot pink. I then decided to cut a black dry erase sheet to fit the screen so she can change the scene with whatever she is playing using the chalk markers.
Rob’s childhood desk was oak but we refinished it using Retique It. I highly recommend using Retique It if you do not want to have to strip and sand down to the natural wood.
