Sunday, 09 August 2009

• New Bedroom For Two Super Awesome Little Girls

  When we started this project, the room was a wreck. There were boxes and totes and papers and just stuff everywhere. Seriously, everywhere. That room was our drop off point of things that didn't have anywhere else to go. It took us several days to get the room cleaned out before we were ready to actually start figuring out what to do with the room.
  
  I had purchased the toddler beds a few weeks ago and that was basically all we had to run with. I was a little nervous about how they would look in the room since we didn't really have anything else that was dark wood. When we went to Ikea, I didn't really have a game plan in mind. I knew we would need a light because that room doesn't have any overhead lighting and I wanted something like a nightstand to have said light on, but other than that we were flying blind.
  
  The first things we found were those pink and yellow picture frames. Initially I had hoped to put them in the playroom but once we found the lampshade that had the colors of the room and the colors of those picture frames, I decided we were going to try achieve a balance of vibrant, bright colors and some muted shades. I wanted to keep in mind that this room was mainly to be used for sleeping purposes as the girls have a rather large playroom already so I didn't want to get too bright or crazy in there. I wanted the room to be soothing and good for relaxing, but still interesting and fun.
  
  

  
  

  
  This is the view from the doorway. The blue bed is Marley's and the pink one is Natalie's. We let them pick their own bedding (from Ikea) and they kind of surprised me with their color choices. Normally Marley is all about pink, as you can tell from her pink hearts baby quilt at the end of her bed.
  
  

  
  

  
  Natalie's corner of the bedroom. The picture frames are the ones we grabbed at Ikea and the pictures of the ones Marley picked out that I changed to black and white on Gimp photo editing software and printed from WalMart as 5 by 7's. The clock is actually one I picked up from Target on clearance for our bedroom about a year ago but it ended up at that spot in the office and we left it there when we made it in to the girls bedroom.
  
  

  
  

  
  Close up of the clock and the pictures above Natalie's bed.
  
  

  
  

  
  Artwork and star hanging from the ceiling above Natalie's bed. Both prints were from this free site (click me!) that is designed so you can download the images as PDF and print them for whatever use you want. We converted the images to JPG using Gimp and sent them to WalMart to be printed as 8x10. You can't tell it but they printed out beautifully. The entire investment for the prints, mats and frames was like $15 per picture. I was looking at prints on Etsy for this room and most of the ones I loved were in the $20 to $40 range. These? Are so much cooler!
  
  

  
  

  
  Lamp from Ikea, piggy bank from Target and the hope chest that they sit on was mine when I lived at home with my parents. I repurposed it for their room. You can't see the curtain rods but they were picked up at Target on clearance months ago and have pink glass orbs at the ends of them. The curtains are the basic white sailcloth from Target - those and white sheers for living rooms are my go-to option for window coverings. Cheap, clean, and easy to wash/replace/size to any room and decor.
  
  

  
  

  
  This is Marley's side of the room. You can't really tell from the pictures but her sheets are bright pink with little white stars. We got them from Marshall's and they are adorable! Natalie picked out some purple ones with white stars at the same time and even though we hadn't put the room together at that point, the sheets coordinate really well with the colors in the room.
  
  

  
  

  
  Close up of the artwork above Marley's bed and the elephants that used to hang in my bedroom at my parents house. I really like that we took elements from my bedroom (the hope chest, the elephants, the angels above the doorway) and moved them in to the girls new room. This image also came from the Feed Your Soul art project so it was free to download, about five dollars to print off WalMart, and the frame was on clearance for about $8.
  
  

  
  

  
  This is the wall with the door and closet and initially we were kind of looking at it going "Huh...what should we do with this?!" The shelves are from Home Depot after we spent a few weeks looking and not finding anything that we felt looked right in the room and (most importantly) fit in to our budget of being really cheap. The shelves and brackets were all like three dollars a piece and they work beautifully for our purposes. You can see two pillows in the bottom corner - that's where David or I will sit to read to the girls at bed/nap time.
  
  

  
  

  
  Close up of the shelves. Natalie picked out the big pink picture from from TJMaxx, Marley picked out the one on the bottom left with the flower pots. I actually let them pick anything they wanted and the ones they picked actually fit in perfectly with the room. The pink star candle holder, the two blue hanging candle holders, the giraffe and two of the three books (the top two, a Beatrix Potter collection and the first Harry Potter) were all mine from my bedroom at my parents house. We are currently reading our way through the third book on the shelf, The Tale of Desperaux.  The pink bowl came from Target and houses Natalie's binkies. These pictures were also chosen by Marley, converted to black and white on Gimp and printed at WalMart.
  
  

  
  

  
  These angels were gifted to me from my Mommy and used to hang in my bedroom, then above Natalie's crib, and now over the doorway in the girls room. I think they are actually supposed to be Christmas tree ornaments.
  
  

  
  

  
  The closet! This gave us the most trouble out of everything in this room. Our original plan had been to tear out the wood shelves and repaint the closet to the color of the room before installing a closet system. Once we realized we no longer had the remaining paint from this room (gifted to a neighbor who needed to repaint to sell his house) and didn't know the color, we were torn over whether we should repaint the entire room a different color or just leave the closet white. While looking over closet systems we got lazy and cheap and decided forget it - we'll reuse the bookshelf and fabric bins from their toy room and keep the two shelves up top. The fabric bins hold shirts, pants, skirts, pajamas and shoes. Next to the bookshelf is our diaper pail. The girls clothing hangs above. On the shelf above that we have swimsuits on the left, diapers in the big fabric bin in the middle, and Marley's panties on the right. On the top shelf we have their fall/winter clothing in Space Bags and their socks in a small blue fabric bin. It's not perfect and I need to figure out a couple things still to make it more practical, but you can't get much cheaper than free and hey, it works pretty well.
  
  Now you know entirely too much about the room renovations but whatever. I'm proud of all the work we put in to it and I'm really proud of how cute it is without relying on Disney characters or a princess theme.

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