Bedroom Re-do

For about 6 months I have been gathering different elements and hoping to redecorate Taylor’s room.  Most of the room was the same from her nursery and we only got her a new comforter when she transitioned to a big girl bed 2 years ago.  She wanted to keep so much of the room the same at that time and I was busy planning Elizabeth’s nursery that I left it like she wanted.  It was time for the baby quilt and sea animals to come down and new elements brought in that reflected who she is and what she loves.  If it was up to her, the room would look like it threw up Disney and Hello Kitty, but I wanted to try and stay away from ‘logo’ products in order to help the room grow with her.  On one of my trips to Ikea for completely different items, I feel in love with this flower duvet cover and the matching curtains.  Taylor’s closet had folding doors on it that didn’t work well so when getting her nursery ready we took the doors off and put up a tension rods with curtains instead.  This has worked out so well with sneaking into her closet during the night to put away laundry or not having to worry about pinched fingers.  Plus the girls love hiding behind the curtains.  I wanted to be honest with how Taylor’s room looks on a daily basis and the clutter drives me insane.  Part of the re-do was also to clean out and offer her better usage of dresser drawers and baskets in her room/closet.  Here is her room before.  Sorry for the poor lighting, but I forgot to take pictures until 11 o’clock at night when I started the re-do.

The clutter of doll/build a bear clothes drive me nuts!  She uses the top floor of her doll house to store cd’s and her video games from little sister.

See baby quilt from over four years ago and massive amounts of stuffed animals on the bed?  Does anyone else have a kid who wants this many stuffed animals on the bed?  Where do you store them?  I know she plays with them, but they end up in a huge pile somewhere.  This is one problem I haven’t solved yet.

First, I replaced the curtains with new ones from Ikea.  I heart Ikea and the fact that the curtains came with iron able hem tape so I didn’t even have to get out the sewing machine to make these the right length.  I made them a little longer so she could make it like a stage.  I have a hook inside the right side to pull the curtain back so she can get to her clothes.  This has worked really well for us.

I also angled her doll house to give her a little more room along the window to play with her baby doll center.  She spends a lot of time at the center and it also gave her some baskets for doll clothes and accessories in between the doll house and baby center.

I changed her comforter to this sweet set from Ikea.  I took off most of the stuffed animals and she seems to utilize her bed for play more now.  I find her tucking her doll in and she even tries to make her bed more often now.

I love all the colors and possibilities with this duvet cover.  I even found this floor pillow to match and thought it would be nice for reading books for playing her games. 

The next big change was doing something about the blank wall above her bed.  I spent many hours looking at Etsy and all the beautiful paintings that some of the artists do on there.  I loved many of them but there were never quite right, or if they were they were WAY out of my budget.  So I decided that I would attempt to paint my own pictures for her wall.  Please know that I am in no way an artist but thought I could combine a Pottery Barn, Target, and Etsy to make my own.  Taylor loves butterflies, fairies, mermaids, and princesses so I tried to capture all those things.  Plus I feel in love with this wooden cross(unpainted) at Hobby Lobby and knew exactly what I wanted it to say.  I canvases at Michaels when they did a sale and let you use an additional 25% off coupon.  They sat around for 2 months until I decided what to paint.  Then I waited for the craft paint to go on sale for $0.25 each and had fun picking colors. 

I learned that pencil does not paint over easily, glitter glue makes for great sparkly wings and mermaid tails, the wrong end of a paint brush makes the perfect size polka dot, and a heat tool that I use for embossing can help speed up the painting process when under a deadline.(or you are up until midnight and really want to go to bed)

I did vinyl cut out with my Cricut to do the lettering on the castle and cross.  There was no way my OCDness would be happy with hand painted letters.  Plus I could peel the letters off if they didn’t look right.  I didn’t take the ‘h’ and ‘p’ being right by each other when sizing the letters for the cross.  I would probably make this a little smaller next time, but wanted it big enough to be a focus point.

I didn’t really do much with the bookcase because it is serves more function than fashion and will need a good clean out soon to hand down books to little sister.  I cleaned off a few knick knacks from the dresser and clutter than had accumulated.(along with some dust bunnies)

The last thing I did was hang a few butterflies from the ceiling for a sweet effect.  It was interesting to come up with locations that weren’t in the way of her monitor or the fan.  These were found in the spring section at Hobby Lobby at 40% making them $1.50 each.  A little clear fishing line and push pins made for simple hanging.  One hangs right over her bed so she can look up and see it.

I should’ve videoed her seeing her room because it felt like Extreme Home Makeover and I was Ty telling them to ‘Move that bus’.  She loves it and loved figuring out all the new things.  Taylor has been trying really hard to keep it clean so that she can enjoy it more.  It turned out exactly how I wanted.  I know this was a long post and bless those of you who are still reading.  I did lots of searches for ideas for preschooler rooms and it was hard to find anything out there that you could easily do on a budget(love you Pottery Barn Kids, but my wallet doesn’t) or not overly Disney.  I hope you find this helpful! 

Now any tips on how to store those stuffed animals???