When my youngest daughter turned nine last year, the only thing she wanted was to redecorate her bedroom. After several months of bugging me and begging, I gave in. I think it’s important for a child to have their own space that they feel comfortable in. I also think it’s important that they are involved in the selection process and the work, so they have ownership of it! Being thoroughly girly girl, she chose Paris as her theme. However, she doesn’t like pink and chose blue instead. That caused a moment’s hesitation because when you google “Paris Bedroom” you find tons and tons of pink and black ideas, but very few blue ones. We researched ideas together and came up with a bedroom we were both thrilled with for under $200. I must tell you that I could have done it cheaper. We already had black chalkboard paint, which I used to paint the knobs on her dresser to give it a different look. I could have used that same black paint to create the designs on her walls myself and saved the $40, but I was working three jobs at the time and opted to splurge on vinyl stickers from amazon…huge time saver that was worth every penny!
Because she chose the black and white bedding set that came with decorative pillows, $55 from Walmart.com, the walls had to really pop! We went to Home Depot and browsed tons of color samples, and she chose her favorite. We didn’t skimp on the paint because I really wanted the walls to have impact and look great! We went with Behr Marquise interior egg-shell stain blocker paint & primer, in Beachside Drive blue. One gallon was about $50, but it covered beautifully with one coat and we had tons left over. I bought white curtains ($9.99) and black valances ($7.99) from Amazon, as well as the vinyl Paris wall stickers: all for about $60. She chose artwork, canvas wall decor and a few decorative accents from Hobby Lobby, where we spent about $30, and we bought a simple black rug from Walmart for about $20. The perfume bottles were $.50 cents each at a local thrift store. I printed labels myself and added food coloring to the water. Skylar really got involved with this project, and painted all the lower half of the walls herself. I was impressed with the effort she put into it, and happy with her sense of satisfaction and ownership when it was finished. I offered to paint her bed as well, which I could have done with the black paint, but she decided to leave it natural.
Unfortunately, she only kept her new room clean for a couple of weeks before she went back to her old ways of stringing dirty clothes all across the floor!
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