When it came time to makeover our youngest’s bedroom, we knew that the new space needed to include a ton of organization, for our organization-loving teen girl! Here’s the before and after.
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Our youngest is a lovely mix of both Dean and myself. She looks just like him and his side of the family, with beautiful dark hair and brown eyes. She absolutely has his sense of humor and quick wit. But when it some to organization and lists, she’s all mine! So, when it came time to give her room a makeover to get it ready for her last few years of high school (and maybe even beyond), we all knew that it needed to include some serious organization.
Her Bedroom Before
The “little one” in our family often ends up with whatever is leftover, as lots of youngests do. She has one of the smaller bedrooms in the house. (Side note: I never understand why builder’s can’t make the bedrooms in a house closer in size. It’s the weirdest thing to have to choose which kid gets the bigger room!)
Shortly after we moved in, we painted her room a pale aqua color and added some pink-ish accents pulled from an Ikea duvet cover set we picked up to freshen her room’s look. Since the old house had built-in bunk beds, we bought her a new day bed style bed, a dresser, some shelves and a corner desk. At the time she liked it, so we called it a day. A little while later we added a large wooden cabinet for extra storage, when we got rid of the desk she never actually used as a desk.
We soon realized that the space still didn’t function well though. We’d made the mistake of buying things for the room, before she’d lived in it and figured out what she really needed.
Fast forward two years and several conversations about organization, storage, space…and of course colors and it was time for a more suitable room makeover.
Cleaning Out the Room
One wonderful thing no one tells you about teenagers is that when they’re motivated to make their rooms how they want them to be, they can sort and organize without much help.
In the past, if we were doing a bedroom makeover for one of the kids, it would take me the better part of a week to help them sort through everything and get the room ready for painting or whatever. This time, our daughter cleaned and sorted and tossed all on her own! It was like magic!
Painting the Room
Color was one of those discussions that seemed to take awhile. She wasn’t sure initially what colors she wanted to use. Except she knew she really didn’t want pink. That she was pretty sure about.
After lots of chatting and looking at photos on Pinterest, she decided she wanted to use a nice pale yellow.
Now, I like yellow just fine. But finding a color she wanted to pair with it was another story!
I must have sent her a gazillion photos of combinations. Some of my favorites included pale pink and green, but she didn’t like those. Finally, we found a beige and almost navy throw quilt on clearance that went really well with the light yellow and she loved it! Classic yellow and blue for the win!
To go with the bedding (our inspiration pieces), we chose Valspar Linen Napkin and Retro-Colonial Blue paints, both in their Reserve line, eggshell finish. Both my girls helped to paint the room one Saturday, while the boys were at a baseball game.
The Organization
Like I mentioned, our youngest has a penchant for organization. She has more notebooks and lists going at one time than anyone I know.
So, when we were updating her room, we knew it needed to include lots of organization.
We kept her bed with drawers underneath and dresser. But we got rid of the cube shelves and added a tall bookshelf, no longer needed in her sister’s room. As you can see, she likes a lot of books!
We bought her several rubbermaid totes to store things like old notebooks (did I mention she has many?!) and stuffed animals in the closet, rather than on an open shelf and a huge cabinet. We bought a smaller, more-suitable-for-the-space desk and set of drawers to go with it and we squeezed a tiny nightstand between her bed and dresser for ease of reaching things. (She insisted those dried roses stayed out, since they were a gift from her daddy.)
And of course, we added a huge wall calendar, a chalkboard and a pin board. And her favorite horse art prints too.
The Finished Space
The finished space is deliberately organized with plenty of open floor space. Both our girls are taking a hip hop dance class this year, so the extra floor space is good for practicing. 🙂
There’s a full-length mirror on the back of the door, for checking out outfits. Plus there’s still room left to put up more art, as our girl chooses.
Overall, we added a lot of function, storage, and organization, while maximizing the space available – with design entirely directed by her!
What do you think of our organization-loving girl’s, non-girly space?
