A Room For The Girls

This was so fun! I got to design my little cousin's bedroom.. to S H A R E. Jessie (13) and Julia (9) decided that they could share a room so that their Mom would be able to convert one bedroom in to a home office (that one is next on our agenda). 

As it sat, Jessie's room was decorated years ago in a jungle theme.. at 13 years old and entering high school next year she decided it was time for an upgrade. Julia's room was still cotton candy pink with bunk beds and had a princess air about it. If you met either of them, you'd know.. they were both way past these themes. But hey, you've got to wait for your busy Mom to make something happen. 

Here are a few "before" photo's of the room we tore apart (Jessie's) .. it isn't a fair view because the bed was already taken out .. but good luck trying to slow these girls down when their new room is in the works. 

I asked each girl what they wanted and both were very adamant that there was to be  N O  P I N K  in the room, at all, whatsoever. I took it in stride and set out to find "the look". Julia wanted blue and Jessie was fixated on purple. I knew that keeping pink out of the room was going to be difficult, I just really love pink. But hey, this isn't my room. 

I consulted my parter in crime in Blueprints & Damask, Tina. We always throw ideas off of each other, even if we are working on personal projects. Our minds work well together. 

I told her what I was thinking and threw her some verbal elements that I wanted to see in the room, she did what she does best, put it to inspiration boards. This is a great tool that we actually offer clients to implement our designs themselves.. check out our joint >> blog << for more information. 

I knew right away what I wanted to do to the walls, the room is small but I could make it seem bigger with layout and paint. Yes, paint makes a big difference in how large your room is perceived. I chose "Manhattan Mist" as the wall color, the rest I'll go into in a minute. 

Here are the boards with our initial thoughts for the room and it's personality:

Jessie's Bed

Julia's Bed

As you can see.. there is pink in there, we just couldn't help it. But, it really was a great starting point. The girls loved them (minus the pink). 

This bedding was from Pottery Barn Teen and to be quite honest, I wanted to find something that could grow a few years with them and not be old news next year. Actually, that was the goal for the room. Make it cute, fun to be in and easily updated without going through this whole thing all over again in no time. The girls were excited because they got their colors. 

The first thing I did in the room was prime the walls and have my handy brother come in to shoot up some simple chair rail trim four feet up from the carpet. Above that I'd paint with the wall color and below I'd paint white, giving it the look of wainscot. Doing this would really lift the ceiling and give the walls a taller look. It's more work, but definitely worth it.


My Aunt wanted to up-cycle as many elements that we could that already existed in the room, I agreed .. why not save as much money as possible? We took the wooden bunk beds apart (my Uncle did) and painted them white, their brown desk was painted white on it's body and "Sea Mist" on it's top, the table lamp was also up-cycled, painted the same fresh colors and given a brand new (on sale) lamp shade. 

My Dad.. the master. 

We hunted for the perfect wall decor, pieces that were more grown up but still fun. Do you see that heart marquee above my Dad's head?? That was a pretty fun find. 

Each girl got a pin board hung above her bed, Julia needed her animal print which we found at Target and Jessie got a custom board made by my Aunt! It seriously is worthy of applause. We had such a hard time finding throw pillows that reflected the girls style and gave the beds the personality that we wanted.. so, I found the material and my Aunt made those as well! 

We had a blast and I'm happy to say, the girls love their room. That's all that matters! Here is the final product.. 

The fuzzy pillows were purchased as was a tiny little pillow (( that we had to have )) and ordered online .. we didn't realize it was the size of a cell phone .. oh well!! My Aunt made the chevron pillows and the Eiffel Tower pillow on Jessie's bed .. I am obsessed with them!! 

Aaaand here we are, happy girls in a happy room. They call it their dorm.