This tween girl bedroom makeover post has been a long time coming, but as you can tell from the before pictures, my daughter isn’t likely to be going into the house cleaning career path as she gets older. So while her room was clean for new carpet installation and house showings, I thought I would finally share the before/after pictures of her room!
I’m not exaggerating when I say that the state of her room has been the biggest example of “Pick Your Battles” in my parenting life.
She was 3 years old when we moved into this house, and I let her have pretty much free reign over the paint color. She picked Bubble Gum Pink. It was literally called that.
So we splashed it on the walls, and then the plan for the rest of the room could loosely be referred to as “Let’s add some green and whatever other random things she gets throughout the years”. We added bits and pieces over the years, including the DIY desk makeover, the old upcycled bench, and the Michael Jackson lamp.
It wasn’t exactly a solid plan, but it worked!
Until she decided she despised pink, and the lack of organization or cohesiveness made my head want to explode. So one summer, she left for camp for the week, and I took over.
Her favorite colors are red and all shades of blue. We tried to keep as much of the big furniture as we could, because yanno… I’m more frugal than I am a designer.
We did get rid of her daybed, though, since we upgraded her to a full-size mattress. I’ll be back later this week with details on how we built her headboard, but let’s just say it started with a common, outdated 80’s piece of furniture!
The dormer was my favorite part of her room when we first moved in. I envisioned a little reading area where she would spend lots of leisurely hours.
Instead, this happened.
The desk wasn’t enough room for her to clutter up, so she actually brought up a TV tray from the sunroom, to use as additional clutter space. The girl is resourceful.
We removed the over-sized desk and ended up with this.
And I’ve saved one of the best views for last. The closet. This child and her closet. I’ve cried many tears standing in front of this view.
Pick your battles. Pick your battles. Pick your battles.
We took the coat rack that is on the wall on the right (under her light switch), and moved that to inside her closet. I just couldn’t handle seeing all that visual nonsense right when I walked in the room. We also got rid of her dress-up closet. It worked really well for years, but it’s time was up.
The picture below is a bit deceiving because we had removed a lot of her clothes and everything from the floor of the closet in order to get new carpet installed. I had to snap a picture while it was clean. It made it easier for me to breathe.
But look at the shelf in her closet!! That’s all her art supplies, and she organized it herself and has kept it organized for about a year now!! Even while she uses all the items! She tells me often how she lays in bed and gazes at it while she thinks of how proud she is! My baby is learning!
After the carpet installers left, I tried to convince her to just sell all her items. We could just bring her mattress back in and keep the room fresh and sparkling!
Goofy girl wanted nothing to do with that! But she’s had this “new” room for about 2 years now, and she actually has been doing a pretty darn good job of keeping it clean! We gave her lots more storage (and hidden storage at that!), and everything has a place now!
It doesn’t help that she’s also a couple years more mature, but she’s only 12, so I’m still considering this a win!
I’ll be back soon with more specific details including the striped wall, the headboard and her desk (can you find it??).