I promised Natalie that when she graduated from elementary school, we would redecorate her room during the summer before middle school. That would be our “graduation gift” to her.
Natalie started looking through magazines (and the PBTeen catalog) well over a year ago. She kept all pictures and ideas in a file folder, so when it came to decision time, she had all her ideas in one place. She went back and forth between turquoise, black & silver and purple, black & white. The purple room won.
Here are the “before pictures” of Natalie’s room.
She had a pale pink room with PB Kids bedding of flowers & butterflies. Perfect for a little girl. But, now she’s 11 and wants a more grown up and sophisticated room.
So, this summer we started the bedroom makeover project.
First, Natalie selected bed linens (from PB Teen — a white background with a black and purple floral print). Next, Natalie selected a shade of purple that she liked. She picked 3 sample purples (from about 12) and painted swatches on her walls to help make the “purple decision”.
We found some cute black & white fashion prints at HomeGoods, along with a big black wire Eiffel Tower. (Natalie LOVES the Eiffel Tower – since seeing it this summer.)
Her “mimi” (Jeff’s mom) painted a beautiful picture of white and lavender tulips on a black background. And, we found some cute mirrored inspirational words and flowers that we put on her walls above her closet. Dream … Imagine … Inspire.
Natalie has a bay window in her bedroom. We talked about building a window seat. It would have been cute, but it didn’t seem very realistic that she would use it (except to pile up junk), because she wouldn’t have any walls to lean up against (it’s all windows). She wanted seating of some kind … for when her friends come over.
We had an overstuffed chair in the kids’ family room that wasn’t being used much. I found a cute black slipcover (Bed, Bath & Beyond) that fits the chair like a glove. I found a fun black lamp (Lamps Plus) to hang above the chair and a black side table and now she has a very cool, teen lounge area in her room.
The biggest challenge was to find curtains. I thought it would be easy to find a simple black and white curtain (without spending a fortune). Target has some adorable curtains in black & white — zebra print and chandeliers, but they didn’t coordinate with Natalie’s bedding. So, we went with basic white curtains with a black sheer netting.
There are a few finishing touches left (like putting pictures in the new frames). As I’ve told Natalie, “a room is never complete … you always keep updating it and finding things to enhance it.” The most important thing is that Natalie loves her new room.
