Our New Home: My Daughter’s Bedroom in Aqua

Warning:  this is a LONG post, so better get a fresh cup of coffee first! 🙂

If you’ve been reading for any amount of time, then you have seen my daughter’s room more than once.  Since we keep moving and her tastes keep changing, we continue to make small tweaks to her style, and I feel like it really fits her personality now.  She’s ten, and has always had a great sense of style, and she wanted something that was elegant and feminine–but not pink and green (we’ve had that before, but I guess that time has passed).

I’ll come back with a post sometime soon on all the changes her room(s) have gone through over the years, but today I’m going to focus on this one in our Savannah home.  We moved this summer, and so you haven’t seen this room yet, although I’ve showed you her bathroom {here}.

While the color on the walls is the same (Glidden’s Almost Aqua), you can see that we went with a brighter coral in the bathroom but a softer salmon pink in the bedroom (which I prefer, to be honest).

This is a HUGE room–the biggest bedroom in the house–and it measures almost 15′ x 20′.  Big rooms are harder to decorate than small ones, in my opinion, and there is definitely a lot of wasted space here, but remember that it’s military housing and it’s not our “forever house,” so I really had to resist the temptation to fill the space with furniture that I wouldn’t be able to find a place for in our next house.

Here’s a wide shot from the door:

And another one from the corner:

There are three windows in this room–they’re all on one wall and that’s the front of the house.  I placed the $15 thrift store love seat that I reupholstered under two of the windows.  You can read about that project {here} and {here}.

The loveseat is just the right size for my little girl, and she loves to snuggle up here with a book (or her Kindle) and a blanket.

I did Scotchguard the loveseat, because even though we have a no eating/drinking upstairs rule, sometimes that rule gets bent a bit during sleepovers!

The little wicker chest was my mom’s; I spray painted it white and we use it as a coffee table of sorts.

The chandelier gives her extra light for reading and the little mirror-topped table holds books.

The square polka-dotted plates are from Amy; I added a vinyl monogram to them using some brown zebra shelf paper and my Silhouette Cameo.

The bedding is a hodge podge of sources (they’re all listed at the end of the post), but everyone always wants to know where the duvet cover is from because it is truly gorgeous.  It’s the Annabel duvet cover by Serena & Lily {click here for more info} and it was a bit of a splurge, but it is fabulous quality and it makes the room.

The iron headboard was mine when I was little, but I’ve spray painted it (color below in the sources).  The plates are a thrift store find from years ago, and yes, we used to eat off of them!

The breakfast-in-bed tray is also a thrift store find, and while it was red when I bought it (for $3), it’s since been light pink, hot pink, and turquoise blue.  Now it’s the same antique brass color as the headboard, and I like it best this way.

The little table at the end of the bed was $3 at a yard sale, and it’s been a bunch of different colors over the years.

The nightstand is also a thrift store purchase (do you note the recurring theme here?!) and I had grand plans of painting it with a fun pattern, but I never got around to it.  The lamp was a HomeGoods find and Annabelle and I just love the trellis pattern on the lampshade!

I also found the wall mounted book rack at a thrift store at least five years ago for $12, but it’s originally from Pottery Barn Kids (I think it’s called the Catalina).  My kids read constantly and one of the things we had to do to get her room ready to photograph was move stacks and stacks of books back to their shelves.  She has this rack plus two bookshelves, and boxes full of them in the garage, too! You can read a list of her favorite books {here}, by the way.

The desk is from the Cameron Antique Fair in North Carolina, and I suspect that it was actually a dressing table because it’s just the right size for my daughter.  She uses it as both and the drawers are full of tiny treasures!

The burlap valances are a recent addition and the tutorial for them is {here}.  I had long pink drapery panels from Ikea in her originally, but it was just too bright with all that pink.  So I put them away for the next house, or to sell on Craigslist–I haven’t decided which yet.  I sell more things on Craigslist than I buy, and I always have an envelope of cash from my sales–when I mention that I’ve bought a “splurge” item like the duvet cover, I almost always use my Ebay and Craigslist funds to buy it.

The armoire is OLD and not very good quality, but I never feel bad about painting it, changing the knobs, or adding fabric (or in this case, brown zebra shelf paper) to jazz up the door panels.

The hook on the side usually holds her ballet bag, but I made her take it down and organize the 73,000 hair pins that are in the bottom of it!

The ballet barre is a DIY special and it gets a lot of use.  It was a good way to utilize some of the space in this room, although you can put a barre up even in a small bedroom if that’s what you have to work with.

The two tutorials I’ve written on ballet barres are {here} and {here}.   Which kind you put up really depends on how old (and how serious) your dancer is; I discuss the pros and cons of both in the first link.

On the far end of the room is the door to her closet (it has to remain closed since we’re not done cleaning it up yet!) and Bolt’s cage.  Bolt is her hamster, and there’s nothing I can do to make his cage look pretty, but she loves him dearly so I don’t worry about it.

One of her bookshelves is on the same wall, with the TV.  It’s only hooked up to the Wii–we don’t have a playroom or bonus room in this house–and it will go away if she stops getting straight A’s.  Can you tell I struggled with allowing it in her room?

We’ve since added a gold accent wall behind her bed; you can see it {here}.

That’s about it.  I’m listing all the sources I can remember below in case you have any questions.

Sources:

(FYI, some of the links are affiliate links; although if you buy through these links you don’t pay a penny more than you would otherwise!)

Paint color:  Glidden’s Almost Aqua

Bedding:  Serena & Lily’s Annabel duvet cover; white matelasse sham and quilt and all three aqua pillows–HomeGoods; brown tailored bedskirt–Goodwill; pale pink sheets–Shabby Chic by Target.

Iron headboard–was mine when I was a little girl; I spray painted it with Rust-Oleum Metallic Spray in Antique Brass

Breakfast-in-bed tray–thrift store; I painted it with Rust-Oleum Metallic Spray in Antique Brass

Loveseat–thrift store, I reupholstered it with Waverly’s Fun Floret fabric in Spa

Side table next to loveseat–HomeGoods

Apothecary jar–HomeGoods

Sunburst mirror–Hobby Lobby

White wicker trunk in front of loveseat–was my mom’s; I painted it white

Crystal chandelier–Hobby Lobby

Desk–antique fair in NC

Desk chair–Ikea

Window treatments–I made them using blue burlap; the tutorial is {here}

Lamps with aqua and white trellis shades– Home Goods

Wall-mounted book rack–thrift store (but it’s originally from Pottery Barn Kids)

Nightstand–thrift store, baskets in nightstand–Ikea

Armoire–this is an old and rather poor quality piece that I put together from a kit almost 15 years ago, I added the crystal knobs and the brown and white zebra shelf paper on the door.

Side chair–thrift store, I painted it white and brown and recovered the seat

Ballet barre–see the tutorial on how to build your own {here}

White rug–Target

Plates above bed–thrift store

Brown bird-themed hooks–Hobby Lobby

Thanks for stopping by!