Wednesday, April 1, 2015

A Hawaiian-Hula-Mermaid Bedroom Makeover!

{This is my attempt at a panoramic photo... The lighting from her window is weird so forgive my amateur photography skills.}

This year for their birthdays, our kids are both getting bedroom makeovers. They have enough "stuff", but wanted new updated rooms, and that sounded great to me!

A has had the same owl themed room since she was 18mos, so for her 7th birthday (which is not until Saturday - she got this a little early) it felt time to update. This girl is after my own heart in her love of Hawaii (she has only been there twice, and once was in utero...and the other she was not even 2, so I don't know where her obsession came from - but it's not from memories!) She even had a Hawaiian birthday party a couple years ago! She has been asking for a Hawaiian-Hula-Mermaid room for a couple of years and I love that it is a theme that can grow with her. My challenge was that I did not want it to turn out tacky looking. No offense to Oriental Trading Co and their great party favors, but their catalog is not what I wanted it to look like ;) 

We went with a loft bed to give her more space to play underneath - and because they are COOL! :) It is surprisingly a very sturdy and good quality bed for just being Walmart. I wanted bedding that was fun and bright, but not necessarily married to this theme forever. It took me a looong time to find what I was looking for, but I absolutely love the look of this and it is great quality and super soft and cozy too. I used a grass skirt fringe that was made for a deck and was able to cut it into pieces for her bed, window, and closet. There was about an inch of it leftover - I love it when things work out so perfectly. I hung it with 3M velcro strips - love that stuff. (In fact I hung almost everything in her room with it!)

(Forgive me on the dresser... I ordered these adorable chevron knobs (and counted from memory instead of looking - oops) and I did not order enough. 2 more are on the way to complete this :) Crazy how just updating knobs can change the look of a piece of furniture so much! We took the doors off her closet and put her dresser inside (amazingly it fit with room to spare!). This was an after thought - we just couldn't get the furniture set up in her small room in a way we were happy with. This solved the problem and I am really happy with it. On the sides of the dresser, the closet goes back in on both sides, so that is where we can hang dresses and longer items. If we choose to keep it this way when she gets older, we can always raise the hanging rod up too as her clothes hang longer. My one challenge with this will be helping her keep it looking semi-tidy since we can't just close the doors. We also may add some shelving to her walls at some point for her dance trophies.

I wanted her to have a cool little hangout space. This dollhouse was mine as a child and though she loves it and plays with it everyday, it has taken up a lot of her small room - this works much better! Our girl loves to read, so this reading nook was a must. (We got her that Pottery Barn Anywhere Chair for her 1st birthday and it has been such a great purchase - I can even sit comfortably in it!) of course her Frozen calendar has to be in there too - she loves checking the date and counting down to special days.

I got to get super crafty and make a ton of stuff for her room! I have pulled some pretty late nights over the past few weeks, but it was worth it ;) The hardest part by far was painting the waves along the walls - a very tedious process I was so glad to complete, but it really made the room.

I made this memory board (the picture is crooked, not the board). I ordered some hawaiian fabric from Sweet Kapua on Etsy that shipped straight from Hawaii itself. 

And this is a re-purposed drawer front from her nursery furniture. My husband thought I was crazy for saving this, but I knew I would find a use for it. I made the Aloha and hibiscus flower to dress it up for the room, and she can hang her medals on it. Love how it turned out. 

I also made this canvas painted artwork and I love the results (and the colors!! I am loving mint, turquoise, and coral together - and luckily she does too!) these photos do not do justice and you can't really see that these are sparkly - it's really cool in person. (Once again, the picture I took is crooked, not the wall hangings)

This box for her books she already had, but I decided to dress that up for the room too. Again you can't tell how sparkly this mint mermaid is. And A's idea to paint the starfish sparkly is cool in person too. 

And finally, I made her this wall letter with "mermaid-y" glass beads and decorated this cool frame with sparkly starfish. (Again my photo is crooked, not the hanging - I can't handle crooked stuff lol!)

This was a lot of work but so fun to do and I am so happy with how it turned out - and more importantly, so is A! She had to sleep in her brother's room (which was more like "she got to" since they love having sleepovers) for a week and we did the big reveal yesterday morning - she was thrilled! Of course her brother had to join her for an inaugural sleepover and they have been playing a new game in there called "going to Hawaii" all day :) I find myself wanting to hang out in there too!

Maybe next year we can go back to Hawaii :) :)

Now we need to get through Easter and then time to start on G's superhero bedroom makeover!I don't anticipate his being quite as time intensive, but I'm looking forward to updating his space for him too. Stay tuned...







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