back to bunk beds

  Last weekend we decided to put our daughter's beds back to bunk beds.

When our little guy was born and the girls started sharing a room the beds were bunk beds.  After only a few short months we took them apart. 

I was not in favor of this change at all!  I definitely was the minority.  I liked them having their own beds to lie on at ground level.  Plus I had pictures and shelves displayed nicely on the walls.  If we were to do bunk beds then all those items would need to come down and be moved. 

Now having the bunk beds again really opens up the room and gives the girls plenty of space to do whatever.  My oldest has complained here and there of not having her own room.  But secretly she has said that she would be sad if she were to move to our finished basement bedroom.  She is on the top bunk and it gives her a space to get away to do homework or read, which has erased her need for her own room for now.

In all of the rearranging and taking down pictures and shelves, we have decided to update their room.  The girls definitely don't need to have ABCD wall art anymore!  Like a landscaping budget, we have little-to-none decorating budget we need to do this on very little money.  

So I thought I would show you our process.  It will probably be slow and take several months, but it will get done.  We need to create a space for them to call their own.  

To start I'll share some of my favorite ides that I want to include.  For about a year now I have been ADDICTED to Sarah's House, Sarah 101 and Design Inc, and addicted is an understatement!  I absolutely love how Sarah Richardson mixes the old with the new.  She will find vintage or just plain old and ugly furniture and give it a face lift.  She will also take a vintage quilt and totally update the room with fresh paint colors and fabrics.  When you see the finished room the old things blend so well with the new.  It makes the room look polished instead of old and outdated.  I love it!  I want to incorporate this idea into the girls' room.  I don't want it to be all matchy match, it needs variation just like the personality of these two girls that live within.

Sarah always has a "jumping off" point and it usually is fabric.  She pulls room color, furniture color and other upholstered items from this one fabric. 

I have furniture in the room that is painted, and I want to keep them painted white, along with roman shades that we need to keep.  The curtains are optional - I would like to keep them mainly because I really like polka dots and it also could be money spent elsewhere. 

Here are a few pictures of what the room looks like now. 

I loved the paint color back then and it went well with the princess theme we originally had, but now it needs a fresh updated color for two growing girls.  I'm not afraid of color but I was thinking of doing something neutral.  When I threw out the word "beige" my oldest was totally disgusted and pleaded with me for it not to be.  I want the walls to fade into the overall theme.  I don't want them to stand out. 

I SO can see doing wallpaper on one wall as an accent.  Handy husband is SO not on board with that one!  More than likely the room will just be painted.  BOO!

Now that we have bunk beds again it has opened up all this floor space.  We brought up a chair from the basement to watch TV.  I think we will ask relatives at Christmas time for new chairs so both girls can have a spot to sit.

I am just sick of all the clutter!  You can see some of it on top of the nightstand and dresser!  In this redo we need new storage ideas for the closet and probably just weeding through the things that are not played with anymore.  This is not a big room...how do other families do it?  We have personalized space in the closet for little trinkets and keepsakes.  Gosh, I guess we need to go through it almost every couple of months!

You can kind of see the bed skirt we installed on the lower bunk in this picture.  Sorry I didn't take more pictures.  I will have to do that and show how we did it.  It totally hides all the clutter under the bed.  It makes the room seem more bedroom like - something that we didn't have before.

I'll keep posting as we make decisions and as the room changes.

Thanks for stopping.

Bye for now!