It's a strange thing - having to go from a nursery decorated room to (seemingly overnight) a room fit for a teenager. But that's what happened! Our daughter is 11 and one morning I was sitting in my kitchen when she gingerly approached me with a simple request: "Mommy, I want a teenage room." And I was seriously floored. When did she grow up!?! She went further: "I want it to be black and white and pink, and I want a chair that hangs from the ceiling."
And so there it was. The colors, the ideas... it was all planned in her head. My job was to get over my mommy shock and execute a beautiful bedroom for her on a budget.
Her room isn't large. Maybe 12x11? So, when we started planning this, she was set on having bunk beds. A space for her friends (or her sister) to sleep over. And there was the beginning of our plan. When I looked at bunk beds, I realized very quickly that I wasn't willing to spend $1500 on a bunk bed that I actually liked, and the metal ones just weren't in my style frame. Improvising was a total necessity in this venture.
Off I went to Ikea. We bought one unfinished Mydal bunk bed for a whopping $159. We happened to have two twin mattresses, so this was the cheapest way to maneuver my little girls tween dream. And so, we were left with this:
Pretty blah as it is, right? Of course, in my head I could see the finished product - but my husband was looking at me like I had lost my MIND. lol..
The wall to the right is a wall of windows - so I imagined it pink with simple white drapes and a beautiful mirror:
And lastly, the wall by the door - I imagined her door and closet doors painted black. I wanted to find an antique secretary for her to use as storage and a desk and dress it up with a cool green/yellow paint - and of course the chair from the ceiling. This one is from Anthropologie and my daughter loved it.
There is the basic plan. And so it was time to create that bunk bed and striped wall. Cue the entire week it took to paint all of the bunk bed pieces and the 2 full days it took to paint the striped wall... this was definitely a labor of love!!!
We started with the wall. To paint stripes on a wall, I always recommend using the ridiculously expensive Frogtape. It costs a fortune, but truly does keep the paint out!
I started by deciding how wide I wanted my stripes. I wanted these stripes to be large and small, so I started measuring, using a level and taping. The key to frog tape edges is to use a credit card on the edges to make sure they are tight against your wall. There will be NO bleeding if you do this, so be extra careful not to miss any spots. Tape, tape and more tape!
To make sure I didn't paint the wrong thing, I wrote a little "b" for black in the black sections. Just being extra cautious!
Once we were all taped, it was time to paint. I carefully painted with Tricorn Black (sherwin Williams) over the black sections. This took two coats of paint and I used a mini roller made for walls. The small rollers give you more control.
Let your paint dry for 30 minutes and then PEEL OFF THE TAPE. Do not allow this to sit for more than a few hours because the tape could peel back some of your fresh black paint and that would suck. Peel that sucker off as soon as you're sure you don't need any more coats to finish it.
Here's the wall - you can see that some of it wasn't dry before I peeled my tape. That's ok - just carefully peel the tape and dispose of it. The wall can dry on it's own. So - do you all see my mistake?
See it? The 2nd small stripe from the ceiling is thinner than the rest. it was an error in measuring - one that I did not go back and fix because I knew that once the bed was in here, it wouldn't matter.
Once this was done, the next project was to paint that unfinished bunk bed. It took me almost a week of painting it before we could assemble it. LOTS of pieces:
At this point it was time to customize it! We went to our craft store and found some wooden letters, painted them the same color and we used trim moulding to secure them in place. They are sort of sandwiched between the moulding and we used wood glue to hold them in place. It works. In addition to the letters, we added some flourishy corners from Lowe's. We also painted the remaining walls hot pink.
So, we have this:
Not so bad, right?
The room was amazing! My daughter loved it - for about 2 months. And then she approached me AGAIN with her tail between her legs. She said "Mommy, I don't know how to say this, but I don't want my bunk bed any more."
And I will be an honest mother and say that I over reacted in a freak out moment and may or may not have made her feel like I was Medusa. I mean, we spent WEEKS on this bed!!! WHAT?!?
But then I let her tell me why.
"I didn't realize it when I asked for the bed, but bunk beds are for little kids. I'm not a little kid. I love everything else about the room, but I want a big bed."
And so... plan 875 was erupting.
As it turns out, I was able to SELL this Ikea hacked bed for 2x what I spent on it. Score. The only thing we lost was time.
It took me a few months, but I was able to save up the money for a new bed on Overstock.com that she loves. We had to buy a queen mattress for it, but as it turns out her room now doubles as a guest room when we have company. In the end, it all worked out.
Here's her room today. We love this bed so much and are adding drapes around it as soon as we can decide on the style. I am also changing out her light to be a chandelier that hangs down in the middle of her bed area.
We couldn't afford the Anthro hanging chair at $500, so I improvised with a $35 hammock chair from Sierra Trading Co. It works beautifully and she loves it (sorry it's crooked in this pic! I took these on a day when we were about to have company - so the towels are out and her room became the "guest room") I haven't painted her secretary yet - can't decide between Frolic (sherwin williams) and something more neutral. I'm leaning towards Frolic.
And it's boring, but here's her closet wall. Her doors are black and we are still working on a paper flower art display for the wall to the right of the closet.
That's it! She loves her room now. It's grown up, functional and super cute. :)
