My Little Girl’s Bedroom Makeover
One Room Challenge Week #2: DIY Light + Paint Colors
Hi Friends! This is Kristin, owner of Postbox Designs, Interior E-Design working as BOTH the interior designer AND Mama this week! It is Week #2 of the bi-annual One Room Challenge, where I participate each year in this 6 Week Makeover of any room of our choosing. And this time I’m taking on my seven year old daughter’s bedroom-who could be my toughest client yet! She requested a Unicorn AND Horse themed bedroom. And as her Mom, I wanted a space that felt charming and sweet, while still being a space she can grow into. I normally work virtually with my clients all of the country with Online Interior Design, so it is quite different to be working in my very own house. The hallway leading to her bedroom looks like a bomb exploded. As all of my orders are coming in, I’m stashing the ever-growing stack boxes in this area…by Week #5 I probably won’t be able to walk to her bedroom!
In case you missed it, last week I unveiled the plan for her bedroom:
Week #1: Bedroom Makeover….Revealing the Plan!
Grab the Free Design & Shopping List
You can check out the “Before” of her room, as well as all of details of her bedroom makeover. I also shared the Free “Shop This Room” Guide, where I put the Mood Boards + Shopping List up for free in case you want some items for your own house. You can grab it in my FREE RESOURCE LIBRARY. When you sign up, you will get the link and password to access it (along with my dozens of other Free Designs inside).
Week #2: Let There Be Light
In her existing bedroom there are two can lights. Functional but definitely a little boring. I wanted to convert one of them to something a little more fun and whimsical. As a bonus, since there is already a light there, my handy dandy hubby Ben could swap out the lights for me, instead of calling an electrician and messing with the drywall.
So this is the fixture I fell in love with. She is gorgeous, isn’t she?
But I had a bit of a hard time spending $300 for a light fixture in my seven year old daughter’s bedroom. My bedroom…I would have bought it in a heart beat. But I knew I wanted to put most of my budget into her furniture and other items, so I searched for a way to re-create this Anthropologie’s Dorette pendant light, which comes in at $298 plus shipping.
In my search I found another scalloped white pendant, but this one is from Target’s Pillowfort line. It is called the “Scallop Light” and clocks in at a mere $59.
But now to re-create the tassel look. My first thought was the tassel looked a bit like my tassel key chain. So I went on a search and found this adorable gold and aqua leather tassel keychain for just $10. Plus it was an Amazon Prime find, so shipping for F-R-E-E. Bingo.
DIY Light Fixture Tutorial: Creating My $69 Tassel Light
I’m not going to lie my friends-this could be the world’s easiest DIY tutorial. It cost me $69 and took me 5 minutes to create.
Here is what I started with:
A pair of scissors
Leather Tassel Keychain
The bottom part of my light fixture
My Target light fixture came with a removable fabric bottom to the pendant-it is made to help filter the light and hide your light bulb. It actually came loose in the box, so all I did was grab it and set it aside.
The part of this that is supposed to face outward is a white fabric. I’ll call this the “good side” The inside part is a white cardboard-like material. I’ll call this the “unfinished side”. So I flipped it over the “unfinished” side. Then I found the middle of the light and marked it with a tiny dot. I’ll be honest-I just eyeballed it. But feel free to go pro and measure it for an exact center location.
I took my scissors and made a small slit from the cardboard “unfinished side”. It tried to make it as small as I could, knowing I could always enlarge it.
I removed the large ring at the top of my keychain. Then I slide the chain of the keychain through the slit. The tassel is sticking out from the fabric ” good side” of the light. Then I flipped it over and re-attached the large ring to the keychain. This kept it from sliding through. When I lifted it up, the tassel nicely dangled from the bottom of my light fixture.
When I put the light upright, gravity allowed for the tassel to slip through to the end, where it caught on the ring. That was the pretty gold chain of the keychain was visible.
My husband installed the light fixture in the ceiling for me (he is such a good guy!). The light has three prongs so you can easily slide this fabric bottom onto it, and the prongs hold it in place. Here is what it looks like installed:
For $69 and five minutes, I was pretty happy with how it turned out! I am planning on adding a Gallery Wall to this wall, and will place her pink velvet sofa under this new light.
Picking the Perfect Paint Colors for a Little Girl’s Bedroom
Honestly, one of the very first things I did when designing my daughter’s bedroom was to pick her colors. I asked Adelyn what colors she wanted to see in her room. She very determinedly told me “seafoam green” and “pink”. I knew as her Mom I wanted a soft, subdued color palette instead of bright and bold colors. My goal was to create a room filled with soft aquas, pinks, mint greens, and whites.
I decided to re-paint her entire room in Benjamin Moore’s “Sweet Dreams”, which is a pale aqua (the color all the way to the left). I used the other two Ben Moore colors as inspiration for the colors for the rest of the room, BM “Charming Pink” and BM “Simply White”.
Painting the Room…The Right Way
Confession time. I am the world’s laziest painter. Seriously, I will grab what I have around me, such as a plastic cup, for my paint cup. I won’t prep the wall or prime, I just go at it. It drives my husband crazy. He likes to have the right tools and do things the proper way. So this time I decided to try it his way…and do it the RIGHT way. I went through and filled nail holes, sanded rough areas, and I decided to use the right supplies this time. I decided to use the HANDy Paint Products System. My father-in-law, who is a professional remodeler has always used their products in the past, so I figured to do what the pros do.
Why have I not done this earlier?
I could have saved myself so much time and hassle in all of those other paint jobs. Now that I have used the RIGHT supplies to paint with, I will never go back. I used their tray, roller cup, and paint cup. But my fav was absolutely their Paint Cup…not only was it super easy to use, it even had a magnetic area for my paint brush! Um, brilliant. Here is the entire set, and it comes with disposable liners as well, so you can toss it without having to scrub the entire cup. (I mentioned I was the world’s laziest paint right? That includes hating the clean-up, so I LOVED this feature too).
It took me three days and two coats to go bright her original bright aqua colored walls to the more toned down pale aqua color. I spent the first day filling nail holes and prepping the wall. Then the next two days were spent trimming and paint the walls. So this was the big project of Week 2 for me.
I spent the last day doing touch-ups and Baby Girl decided to join in on the fun! My 11 year old daughter Reagan was our photographer as Adelyn and I did a funny photo shoot. She gives her new room two thumbs up.
One Room Challenge Week #3: How to Layer Bedding
What’s going on for next week?
Since it is a bedroom, a huge focal point of this room…is the bed! But a question a lot of my clients ask me is:
How do I style my bed?
So for Week #3, I’m going to share all of her cutie pie new bedding, and how I am styling it for Miss Adelyn’s bedroom.
In the meantime, you can also follow along and see behind-the-scenes peeks on Instagram!
And please be sure to check out the hundreds of other rooms that are also be transformed during One Room Challenge. They will blow your mind!
Cheers,
Kristin
tim@designmaze says
so creative and a total knock-out DIY!!
PostboxDesigns says
Thank-you so much!
Kimm Jones says
Great DIY light fixture!!
http://www.lifestyleduchess.com/blog/
PostboxDesigns says
Thank-you! I was happy to worked out, since that was my only plan for a light fixture for the Challenge! 🙂