Girls' Bedroom: Makeover Part I

Did you guys enjoy your weekend - make any cocoa brownies??  We were able to make the brownies last a couple days, which I thought was a miracle in this house!!!  While enjoying the cocoa brownies, I  also was really psyched to be featured on a wonderful blog, A Thoughtful Place.  Courtney put out a call on Instagram to share pictures of our bathrooms last week.  Let me tell you there were some really awesome bathrooms and gave me some inspiration for our master bathroom!!  If you haven't been able to check out the awesome inspiration, please check it out!  Thank you so much to A Thoughtful Place for featuring the girls' bathroom!!!

Today's project was actually completed about a month ago, but the overall project of updating the girls' bedroom is still on going.  I am looking for inspiration daily!!  Just to show you the current state of the room, here is a picture that shows off the new wall color this room is now sporting.

When we had our first daughter, I knew we wanted more children so I wanted the room to be gender neutral.  We decided on a Noah's Ark theme for the nursery and painted the beige walls a light yellow.  Which if you have ever painted with yellow, I would totally recommend getting plenty of samples.  The original color I wanted looked more orange on the walls.  Another recommendation is look at the color at different times of the day.  The room has been that yellow and Noah's Ark themed for almost three years, so we are definitely past the infant/baby stage and time for an update.

I had originally wanted a wall mural, but then the thought of one day moving or wanting to paint over it with a new wall color would make my decision very hard.  One of the many talents of my husband is that he is an absolutely wonderful artist!!!!  So he decided to paint a Noah's Ark picture on three canvases that I could always have.

Here is a picture of the canvases painted.

Pretty awesome, right!!!  I still love the paintings, but right now I have them in the closet until I decide what to do with them.   When we had our second baby girl, we purchased a second crib that is identical to the first one.  Our original reason for purchasing the crib was because it can convert from a baby bed, toddler bed with the guardrail, day bed and then to a full size bed.  I love that it is a piece of furniture that could be with the girls for a very long time.  However, my heart is torn because I have since seen other pieces of furniture that I feel will be more functional in the long run.  For now, we are using what we have especially since  the toddler bed and baby bed are what we need for the moment.

So back to the current state of the room.  We decided on a light gray for the room for a couple of reasons.  One, I have a love affair with gray.  Two, I LOVE the fact that it is a neutral color.  If the girls decided on different accent colors down the line I hopefully shouldn't have to paint the room again!

With children comes clothes, books, and toys!  Before I was introduced to Ikea, I found this shelving unit at Costco.  Don't get me wrong I still love it, but you know me I LOVE me some Ikea shelving units (read more here on my most recent creation with the shelving units).  Anywho, I purchased the shelving unit from Costco and initially it was used to store all of the girls' books.  Then as the playroom evolved, I was able to spread out their books (read more about that here and here).

Their clothes definitely increased, so I decided to purchase a few storage bins at Ikea.  I have put their pants, skirts, and shorts in the bins - two for each girl.  I am currently working on labels for them - thinking of using my silhouette machine for that.

The rug was a purchase from Target about a year ago, it might even be longer than that now that I think about it.  It is actually two rugs, that I am researching how best to make them look like one piece.

The rug is the driving factor for the rest of the colors in the room.  The main colors are gray, purple, and green.  I purchased two shelves from Container Store, one for each girl to have for a picture and some special items.  The ones I purchased where more of an oak color to match the girls' beds, but I can't seem to find them on their website.

So how about a good before and after photo for you!!

 

I am working on a few things to fill that big empty space between the shelves.  Currently collecting the supplies to make our own artwork and using this for our inspiration.  And of course, working on labels for the bins I purchased from Ikea.

Any tips or suggestions on what to fill that space with???

With much love,

Kristin