This week, I completed the finishing touches on my daughter’s bedroom.
As I recently shared, we completed a huge portion of our basement renovation in early February and moved my mom into her in-law apartment.
This move freed up the extra bedroom in our upstairs space for my daughter, who recently turned 9-months-old and was quickly outgrowing her space in our closet.
We had started her in the bassinet portion of our pack ‘n play and had gradually upgraded her to the bigger pack ‘n play (removing the attachments on the top pictured here). But it was finally time to move her into her own room (and hopefully help us all sleep better!)
I have never really decorated a kids’ room before. When my youngest two children were born, we lived in an apartment that felt very temporary. We couldn’t paint, and I didn’t want to invest much in other decor when I thought we’d be moving to a house in the near future.
Well, you know what they say about the best laid plans. We ended up moving from our apartment to my parents’ house for about a year and a half as we struggled to find a home to purchase.
When it became obvious that we were going to be at my parents’ house longer than anticipated, I did a few minor things to make the boys’ room special, adding a bunk bed and a rug to give them floor space to play. (They were 4 and 2 at the time).
Still, I didn’t paint or choose specific furniture or anything like that for the boys.
Fast forward another year, and we managed to purchase a house – but didn’t have much money to do anything fancy. We had to replace the flooring in the space that would be my oldest kids’ room, but aside from that and painting, we really didn’t do much to decorate.
My third son came along and I just sort of made do with paint once again, a temporary pack ‘n play crib, and a repurposed IKEA shelf for a changing table/storage solution.
None of these situations really felt special or permanent.
Then, of course, came my divorce, another move to another temporary space for me and my boys, and a whole lot of upheaval.
By the time life changed again and the boys and I moved into another new house, they were old enough to have conflicting opinions, so the most consensus we could find for their room was a paint color for the walls. Plus, I didn’t really want to decorate based on any of their interests since I knew their passions at that time were fleeting (ahem, Cars the movie?).
Long story long, therefore, my daughter’s room provided an opportunity to finally “nest” and create a special space for her.
I feel a bit like I gypped the boys in comparison, but they don’t seem the worse for wear.
I ended up using leftover paint (misty lavender) that we had originally gotten for the basement. It looked too pink in the basement lighting, but upstairs it actually worked as a pale lavender.
Still, not wanting to make her room excessively “girly,” I opted to tone down the purple with accents in green and blue. I settled on a sage area rug and a navy blue canopy to create a cozy reading nook. We had previously purchased a comfortable navy rocking chair/recliner that we moved into the space, and I selected a set of sheets and some accent pillow covers that tied all the colors together.
We had to replace the light fixture because the old one was damaged, so I chose a bohemian inspired fan/light combination.
And, because I am plant obsessed lately, I asked my husband to hang a few macrame plant holders and found these adorable macrame valances to decorate the windows. A few months back, I had found a macrame dream catcher for her too.
Lastly, I hung some twinkle lights that I had leftover from our wedding a few years ago, and I strung a simple piece of twine with 4×6 photos hung from it using mini clothespins.
We’re opting to make her bedroom Montessori-inspired, so I left the mattress on the floor for now. Eventually we’ll find a bedframe to suit the room, but that won’t be for a while. For now, though, we’re still using the pack ‘n play at the lowest level for her nighttime sleep and naps.
I’m really happy with how the space turned out. Since I spend a lot of time in the room still, rocking and nursing her in the middle of the night, I feel like the project (and the associated expense) was well worth the effort.