Maddie's pink pad!

When we decided to buy our new house and move across town, Maddie got very upset. She loved her school and did not want to leave her friends behind. We made a deal: in exchange for having a positive attitude about the new house/neighborhood/school/friends, Maddie would get HER OWN ROOM!  {Bella and Noah were young enough to share a room for a few years, at least.}

{this was taken before we moved in}

Before we moved in, we painted the kids' bedrooms. Maddie chose a pale-ish pink (Behr's "Scented Valentine"), and even got to help paint. She got two new-to-her beds (matching twin sized antique beds that my mom had bought at an auction years ago and never used) and matching comforter sets in a hot pink and white damask print. She was thrilled with the results, until we finished re-doing the kids' bathroom.

Maddie had fun helping me choose fabrics and accessories to use in their bathroom, and now she wanted to do something special to her bedroom, too. Since her eighth birthday was coming up, we agreed on a "bedroom re-vamp" as her gift from mommy and daddy. She was pretty specific about what she wanted: canopies, a new desk, and lots of pillows!

We chose to start with the pillows, and headed to the fabric stores.  Maddie is a major girly-girl, so we picked mostly flowers and polka dots, with a little bit of sparkle thrown in.  After a few nap-times worth of sewing, her beds were both overflowing! {The sequined "M" pillow came from Santa.}

The dresser is another one of my mom's antiques. Maddie didn't like the original brown wood finish, so we decided to paint it. We took our favorite piece of pillow fabric with us, and went to every paint store trying to match the beautiful shade of blue in it. I finally found Benjamin Moore's "Robin's Nest", and we fell in love! The dresser came out beautifully, and I am really pleased with it.

 
After finishing the dresser, we moved on to the desk. I searched garage sales and Craigslist for weeks trying to find something that fit the small space between her beds. After a lot of disappointment, Justin suggested that we just try to build a desk ourselves. We started at Home Depot and bought 2 table legs, a piece of plywood, and some pre-cut plexi-glass. With Justin's help, I built the desk to mount onto the wall in the back. Then we framed out the edges with some moulding that we found in our attic, and I painted it a combination of white and "Robin's Nest". Her chair was yet another hand-me-down, the desk chair that both my mom and I had used as children. It received a couple coats of "Robin's Nest" and a new seat cushion that I made out of left-over pillow fabric.

The canopies were made using simple, sheer curtains that were left behind by the previous owner..all I did was sew some hot pink ric-rac trim to the edges. Then we built the frames out of wooden shelf brackets and some scalloped moulding from Home Depot, painted them white, and hung them above her beds.

Finally it was time for the finishing touches. A nickel lamp and a nightlight that weren't being used got simple shade make-overs with some grosgrain ribbon. We used more ribbon to hang paper lanterns, DIY tissue paper pom-poms, and DIY tulle pom-poms above her desk. Wall letters covered with scrapbook paper make sure everyone knows exactly who the room belongs to. Our interpretation of butterfly collection (re-painted garage sale picture frames, left-over scrapbook paper, and a set of plastic white butterflies from Target) dresses up the long, empty wall above Maddie's bed.

Maddie and I had so much fun working together on her room that we're already coming up with new projects...little things to add in the future to make it even more "her".