Chic Tween Girls' Bedrooms

As a child, I always had to share a bedroom with my other siblings. I never had a bedroom to call my own. So its kind of liberating to know that we are able to provide my girls with the privacy of their own bedrooms and even more liberating that I am in the process of designing two, not one, "chic" tween girls' bedrooms.

As of right now, the girls have paint on the walls! I am still trying to figure out if I should design them to be identical or not, within the color palette of each room. Some alike elements I know for sure are:

1. Upholstered headboards
2. Full size beds
3. Storage options
4. Extra Seating
5. Desk/Vanity 

As I come across inspirational photos I save them to my archives. One of them that I came across recently was over at Erika Ward's Blulabel Bungalow (beautiful blog BTW) when she informed us about Jonathan Adler's new boutique opening in Atalanta.

I am in love with this headboard! Since I did not achieve the Pink that my youngest daughter wanted, I am going to find a solid velvet fabric in a deeper shade of the pink walls. Here are some more inspiring pink headboards:

Via 1-2-3

Here are a couple more shapes I am loving too (I changed them to black and white to get and idea of shape rather than color):

Via 1-2 (U R not going to believe what pic 2 is)

As you can see I am going for a certain shape and style  that is scalloped, tufted, and with nail-heads. This is a DIY I am looking forward! Just have to find the right fabric and in the right color!

When it comes to a color palette for the pink room, I am loving this Etsy hand stamped peacock pillow with vivid colors of orchid pink and orange and touches of green apple green and turquoise. They are 12x16 for $38 and I absolutely love this shop, she really has some amazing things.

I find myself constantly working and reworking the space planning for there rooms until I get that feeling that I have just the perfect layout for each of their spaces. And again I keep toying with the idea of doing identical rooms. Here is my latest space plan:

Here is my latest quick sketch:

Still do not have that feeling yet, but I know it will come. I do have a tendency to ponder too much, but I gotta feel it in my gut!

 

Check out how this chic plum bedroom inspiration  is coming together for the purple room! The headboard is another Horchow headboard option I fell in love with in plum! I love the quatrefoil cu-out detail. It sill has the same look and feel that I am going for with the scalloping and the nail-heads. I have a good feeling good about this!

I am loving the idea of two-tone painted furniture. I am so into refurbishing a piece of furniture to make it your own which I have seen a lot of in the blogging world. The purple wardrobe is from the UK that comes in a variety of different colors. I am just glad I found one in purple. Here is two-tone in pink. Pretty huh! I came across this in the April 2010 issue of Traditional Home magazine. It was a Market Place profile article on kids furniture. This is the Savannah Dresser changer.

Via

The bench is another Horchow find too! I love the simple shape and settle colors. It comes in four, five and six feet widths.  As far as extra seating options, I do not know if I want to create a window seat or just do a simple bench at the end of the bed with storage underneath, but I do know I want a bench!

When it comes to the desk/vanity, I am thinking about splurging! I think the girls (10 &12) are old enough to handle the West Elm Parsons Mirror Console. There is no DIY in this.

I love this option because its just going to reflect all the beautiful finishes and materials that I am planning for these rooms. I wonder if they will do a  BOGO on these for me?

Things I still have yet to consider are:

1. Flooring - I plan to do a pink and purple shag in the corresponding rooms
2. Lighting - General, task, and ambient
3. Ceiling fan - Lowe's has a clear blade fan, but its pretty expensive. I wonder if I can purchase clear blades separately and do a refurb on a couple of fans from craigslist. (ANY IDEAS?)
4. Window and pillow fabrics - (I actually found a couple but I am not feeling them anymore)
5. Closet Organizers

So we are well underway to creating two Chic Tween Girls' Bedrooms!

More Paint On The Walls

We are making progress! We have painted two more rooms, my daughters rooms! Yeah...!! Now they did come with a few hurdles to get over which includes some spilled paint, holes in the walls, and one "I didn't want this color!"

 

When it came to the paint color, I asked them what they wanted. I really did not even have to ask, it was so predictable. Purple for Brishonne (my oldest at 11 going on 20) and pink for Tyshonne my (second oldest at 10 going on 6).

 

 

These are "my girls!" Love them soooo....much! They are a year and a half apart and could not be any more different. Bishonne is scratching the surface a "teenage drama queen!" And Tyshonne is just my "baby girl," because she has not quite come into her age yet. I am not complaining though, because I am in no hurry for them to grow up at all.

 

It took me a couple trips to Lowe's to sift through some paint chips because I wanted to find the right pink and the right purple for the house. I narrowed them down to four purples and three pinks.

 

 

 

So I bought my sample paints and did my squares. The purple came easy! Although I like the one on the far left, we went with the one on the far right, called Native Lilac by Valspar, for Brishonne. The pinks, not so easy. I got as far as getting the first stroke of the third paint color on the wall and I could not tell the difference between the second and third color.  I thought I got the samples mixed up. Brishonne, thoughtfully, said, "let's just paint all three squares over again," to make sure I didn't mix them up. She then, helpfully, proceeded to grab all three sample containers and splash. Pink paint went everywhere! All over the carpet, her, and the back of my legs. So after a big clean-up, I found out that the two paints are similar when wet. Too bad I could not find that out before all of that. I am not too worried about it because I am replacing the carpet anyways. After all of that we chose the lighter of the three called Irish Rose.

 

 

 

So the paint when on the walls. I was a little afraid after seeing how neon the pink was, especially after going through so many chips to avoid exactly that. But about the holes in the walls...this is one of my pet peeves with my "triple B threat" builder home (Blah, Boring, Builder-Grade). Our dang-on door stoppers is filed under builder grade.

When I first saw them I loved them because they were not the old fashioned ones that stick out of the wall and become a pain in the you know what to vacuum around. They sit on the top of the door hinge behind the doors, so they are hidden. After a few days in the house they were not so lovable. They would get out of place and stop working. We had to keep manipulating them every time we heard the door handle bang the wall, especially int he kids rooms. Eventually we got holes in the walls in all the kids rooms. They even penetrated the doors in Brishonne's room.

But we found the greatest thing at Lowe's. A door stopper wall protector that can be painted. It is so great that we have them everywhere now. Even in the unpainted rooms. This is one of the greatest inventions and I bet if I do some research a home renovator created it.

So here are the finished rooms. Like I said before I was little worried about the pink being so neon, but once the trim paint went on it was fine. Tyshonne got home and griped a little, okay alot, because she said she wanted the darker pink. Her words verbatim were, "that is not the color I chose...I didn't want this color!" Demanding little girl! She was find after sleeping on it. For the ceilings, I went with the same paint in the hallway and in the main living areas. I plan to do some stenciling eventually, but that's down the road.

I will leave you with... some to-dos for the girls rooms:

1. Put in closet organizers
2. Replace the carpet
3. Add ceiling fans (functionality only because it does get warm in there rooms)
4. Add window treatments
5. Create furniture plan (this will serve as my purchasing guide)

Been Too Long

It's been too long to wait for our walls to be painted. We painted only the main living areas and kitchen so far. I feel like I am in a new house. Here is what the walls looked like before. The original color was a off-white that had some peach hues in it. This is a view of the hallway entrance leading to the bedrooms.

It took me two weeks to find the perfect color. I new I wanted a taupe color all along. I had a collection of taupe paint chips that caught my I from Benjamin Moore to Wal-mart. I had a few samples made and painted big two foot squares on several walls in different areas.  I was feeling a color called Sidewalk Square, but it ended up having more grey in it than I wanted. I needed something more on the warmer side of grey with more brown.

So after a couple days of seeing the Sidewalk Square on my walls I went in to work and fell in love with the perfect Taupe on a feature wall in our office. Our department had been recently relocated into another area of the corporate office. There is a feature wall in my supervisors office that was painted in a warm taupe. My supervisor actually found the paint color. She was smart to use a Martha Stewart technique of dipping a paint stirrer into the paint and keeping it. The only thing she did not do was write the paint color down on the stick. But she knew she found it at Porter Paints. So I was on a mission to find this paint color.

We had no luck finding the actual paint color after searching through emails . But wah-lah! We had a small glimmer of hope after the maintenance department found a Porter Paint invoice for one gallon of Soft Taupe #6746-1. I went to the nearest store to take a look and it ended up being a bust. It was no where near what was on that feature wall. So I had them mix a quart of paint from the dipped paint stirrer. It ended up being very close. But honestly a little too expensive for what I wanted to pay per gallon.

With the dipped paint stirrer in hand I went to my local Lowe's and had them mix it using their spectrum. It ended up being dead on. I had a quart of the custom paint mixed and brought it home to paint my two foot square. Perfectamundo! Love it! Here is what it looks like. That's my oldest daughter Bri in her purple attire of course!



Niles Purple and White Vista Armless Chair

After living in our house for two and half years now, we are finally putting paint on the walls. Right now I am venturing into the kid's room designs. My oldest daughter Bri is turning twelve years old  in March. She is a "tween!" Yes, that is an a official term in the kids furniture retail  industry. What I do know is that Bri loves purple! She gets it from her momma! I came acroos this is a very cute accent chair at Overstock! Click here to see! Definelty something to consider for the price. This is a great room inspiration starting point! I am going to have to see what she thinks.