Makeover Monday – Kids Bedrooms, part 1

Welcome back to Makeover Monday!  I know you’re excited, right?

This week I’m showing off the older girls’ bedroom.  Some of you might remember that Annie and Catie actually prefer to share a bedroom.  Weird, right?  Anyway, the room was painted a lovely shade for a master bedroom, but not such a lovely shade for a little girls room.  It needed an overhaul, and I decided to do this while they were away so that it was a total surprise to them when they got home. 

Well, not a total surprise since they had picked the paint colors.  But they didn’t know when I was going to do it, or what all I was going to do.  And it was a very nice surprise I think!

This bedroom is actually quite large with a  H-U-G-E walk-in closet (bigger than the one in our MBR!) and it has a great layout for sharing, as there is a very large dormer in the back of the room that makes a second, semi-private area.  We bought Annie a loft bed with storage underneath and put her in the alcove area:

I also painted a picket fence and grass in that area, opposite the bed.  The flowers are little Wallies stickers (from Dollar Tree no less!) and the ladybug, bumblebee, butterfly, and dragonfly on the wall are wooden cutouts that Annie and I had painted one day.

Her bedding is also new, and appropriately enough it was named Annie’s Country Patch!  Unfortunately I couldn’t find the matching valance (still can’t!) so if you’re ever at TJ Maxx and see it please snag one for me – I’d be ever so grateful to reimburse you for the trouble.  If you read about my giveaway a few weeks ago you may have also seen the personalized name pillows that I made the girls which coordinate with their new quilts.

On the other side of the room is Catie’s bed.  Hers isn’t a loft but it does have great storage drawers underneath – 3 of them, the entire depth of the bed, and all three are stuffed to the brim with dress up clothes!

You can’t see her bedding quite as well but it’s called Fancy Frocks and it’s little dresses that are adorable and perfectly suited to my little fashionista.

In the front of the house this room also has a small dormer which we thought was a perfect spot to build in a desk:

The kids loved that as well, since they then got their own computer.  And mommy loves not having to negotiate screen time!

The wall you are seeing above has also been transformed, even since the initial makeover.  The mirror on a stand has found a new home and I mounted one on the wall behind their door instead.  I also relocated that bookcase above to Annie’s side of the room.

The reason?  Their ever-growing assortment of American Girl dolls was taking over the house!  I love these dolls also, but if you’ve ever purchased one you know what the price tag is and I’m not willing to leave that much money laying around for the puppy to chew.  We needed a safe spot and I wanted it to be beautiful to showcase their collection.  The solution I came up with is this:

The top shelf holds trophies, dance awards, soccer medals, etc.  I put a dowel rod underneath the bottom shelf so they could hang some of the doll dresses there.  I think it looks cute, but we need more hangers as most of the clothes are still in the drawers underneath Annie’s bed.  We also need more doll stands, as the brood has expanded!

So there you have it – our all-new girls room!  It’s for a younger girl and I know it won’t last for ages, but frankly we don’t intend to be in this house for ages either, and I think it will suit them as long as we plan to be here.  Surely at some point they’ll see the merit in separate bedrooms, right?

That’s it for this week!  Mr. Linky is ready and waiting if you’d like to play along (and I hope you do!)  Next week I think I’ll continue my kids room tour and show you Lilly’s new room.  I need some wall ideas there so I’ll be picking your brains…

Home Makeover: Flawed Edition

I’ve been intending to blog about my adventures with a paint can (or 10) for quite some time now, but I’ve never quite gotten the homestead neat enough to do it.  (If you’re a regular reader you know I’m a messie.  I make no excuse for this.) 

I finally decided I had to post, neat or not, because otherwise we’d move before I ever got the chance to show off my hard work.  But here’s the catch: I’m doing it one room at a time.  This makes it much easier for me, because I can shift all of the clutter from one room to the next while I take pictures.  That way everything looks  fake beautiful for blogland, and I don’t have to do any actual organizing and de-cluttering.  Genius, right?

Our house is about 2 1/2 years old.  Weird that I felt the need to re-do everything?  Well not if you know me.  First of all, I love to paint.  Love it.  And while the shades the builder selected are quite lovely, there are only two of them.  And that just doesn’t work for me.

It all started with the kids’ playroom, which was quite dull.  The color was builder’s choice, a golden camel-ish color that is attractive in our master bedroom, but looked dull and depressing in the kids’ areas.  We could have had him use different paint colors (we bought the house while it was being built so we chose all of our finishes) but what would be the fun in that?

Much to my husband’s chagrin, I announced I wanted to paint it lime green.  He was not on board with this decision.  And really, he is the only one with a decent paying job which pays for the paint. (Although it’s worth noting that the only reason my stay-at-home-mom gig pays so poorly is because he’s the one underpaying me.  Humph.)  However, unfortunately for him, I am the one who does the actual shopping and painting.  So guess what color we got?

No, I didn’t really buy it against his wishes.  That would be wrong.  I first helped him to understand that his wishes were misguided.  And then he of course realized that he would never win anyway I was right all along.  And when it was all said and done (entirely by me, I might add) he decided he likes it too.  And I didn’t even have to tell him he likes it, he realized that all on his own.

I The girls love VeggieTales so I used the same Veggie decor from the playroom in the old house, and made a new valance for this window.  (Pardon me if it’s picture overload.  I’m kind of a home voyeur and I love to look at pictures of other people’s houses, so I’m assuming you’re the same.  Right?)

And while the end result may not be worthy of posting on ‘Rate My Space’ or anything, I’m pretty happy:

In fact, I love the green even more now that it’s on the walls.  It made me happy the whole time I was painting.  And since our playroom is the bonus room above the garage with only one window, the amount of light is always an issue.  This color made that room 10 times brighter and more cheerful!  It’s a lot more fun to hang out there now.

And if any of you were looking at these pictures and thinking, “Does she seriously think that is a straightened up room?” the answer is yes.  Yes I do.  I have low standards, and it’s a playroom after all.  If the mess is contained within and I can walk through barefoot without injury, then all is well in my book.  So cringe away tidy ladies, I have made peace with my mess.

Next stop, kid’s bedrooms!   Tune in next week for more of my Makeover Mondays!

*Makeover Monday will be a weekly feature, and this is the first installment.  I hope you will consider joining me!  Feel free to snag the button above (Thanks, Nicole!) and link up with pictures of your own projects – painting, room decor, furniture, landscaping, your wardrobe… Shredheads feel free to post the all-new, shredded you!  Any kind of makeover works for me, and it can be an older post too.  Just link back here and sign Mr. Linky!

Oh, and I know there was no advance notice, but just in case you’d like to play along THIS week, here ya go: