Most little girls will want a pink bedroom at some point in their early lives. Here’s a redesign project where a four year old girl reached a compromise with mom. A pink room, but without any princess influence.
Doable? Absolutely. For under $200? You bet.
The strategy was to let pink be pink, but anchor it with earthier brown, and use accessories to bring in a subtle bohemian bird theme.
Without further adieu, here are the before and after pictures (details and costs of what we did are at the end of this post)
Ok, as promoised, here’s what we did (and what it cost):
Paint
- Painted the room Benjamin Moore Rose Garden (yea, it’s very pink). Cost: $35
- Introduced brown into the room to give it an earthier feel by painting the roof of the dollhouse bookcase. Cost: Brown paint – $4
Windows
- Added some pizazz with rose/red floral curtains from Land of Nod (bonus, darkened the room more too). Cost: $100
Accessories:
- We toned down the bedding to allow the accessories to pop more. The pillows were from another room, and the body pillow cover was found on clearance at Target. Cost: $2
- There were a few bird accessories in the room before (on a mirror and lamp), so we made it more intentional with wall decals of birds throughout the room in unexpected places. We even added a couple birds in the back of the bookcase. Cost: $15 (found them on eBay)
- By displaying sepia toned photos on acid-free paper in the existing frames in the room, we created personalized art at no cost!
So if you’ve been keeping track, that’s $156 plus one day of labor. Not bad!
32 comments
I love the room! Great room in shades of pink without all the fro-fro-frills.
Hi Becky, Those baskets are actually inexpensive cloth bins from Target. I like keeping toy clutter hidden. Thanks for your kind words! It’s my favorite room in the house right now!
I love it! I am curious if you painted the baskets … are those cloth? … on the bookshelves. The whole room looks more fluid with the changes. My eye just wants to sweep through the whole thing and take it all in. It’s great!!
.-= becky´s last blog ..Whew! It’s Friday Again … =-.
Hi Mrs. NTJS,
I honestly don’t remember. I think they actually came from another country – the instructions were in Korean, I think! Just do some searching and see what you find. I bought it as a set, but broke it up throughout the room.
Susan
.-= Susan´s last blog ..coffee clutch | Web 1.0 – before social media =-.
I love the room! I’m actually in the process of redoing our girls’ room. They are both in love w/ pink so I’m trying to find a balance also. It’s nice to see someone else poll it off.
If you don’t mind sharing your source, who did you buy the decals from on ebay? I was looking for some bird decals for our bathroom and those look perfect.
Thanks!
.-= Mrs. Not the Jet Set´s last blog ..Fresh Eats =-.
Aren’t those birds fun? There are actually 10 birds hidden throughout the room. She named them all!
I love that the birds are appearing throughout the room now. The 2 perched on the ‘Emma’ letters are a great idea!
[rq=6697,0,blog][/rq]Super-easy Ikea makeover!
I like that term “fro-fro-frills”! 🙂
Great room in shades of pink without all the fro-fro-frills. Thanks for sharing the inspiration.
Pearl Maple’s last blog post..Sky Watch Friday
Thanks everyone! I’m actually stating to become more of a pink fan myself now! 😉
Mannequin – I like the idea of using charcoal gray, but I agree…can be a little heavy. (Side note: I love charcoal gray and lime green as accents to bright white!)
LOVE your makeover. It is such a challenge to find non-princess pink loveliness for a girls bedroom – I made over my 2 daughters’ rooms recently and took a lot of searching to avoid the princess look.
JanMary, N Ireland’s last blog post..Show & Tell – two little birdies in my back garden
Oh, it’s very pretty. That’s the beauty of pink, you can create so many different moods by adding different colors.
I’ve always been partial to pink and charcoal grey but it’s a difficult scheme to carry off, not for the lighthearted.
mannequin’s last blog post..Sunday School
WoW! what a gorgeous girly room… & the cost is not really reasonable.
Wonderful girl’s room. I never thought too that the colours can be nice mixtures.
Cheers for the w/end!!!
xoxo
Chie’s last blog post..My wheels on Freaky Day
That´s so pretty. I had never thought of the way brown tones down pink before and it really works!
RML’s last blog post..Back to Black…
I love it, before and after!
Jenny’s last blog post..Fix It Friday #16
My three year old would love this PINK room. Beautiful Redesign.
Ha ha ha – tomatoe, tomahto, right? Love it.
Around my house, the girls thought they could get away with it by calling it “Peach.” None were pink nuts though.
Terry Kearns’s last blog post..Our experience: working with a designer
Thx Julia (btw – my 8 yr old LOVED pink up until a year ago, now she says she’s allergic to pink)
Fifi – careful what you wish for…girls are seriously noisey! 🙂
That is an ADORABLE PINK bedroom… makes me wish for a SECOND that I had a girl!
Fifi Flowers’s last blog post..Importance of having a Fashionable Chest…
My daughter has been in a pink-fanatic phase pretty much since she was born, so she’d love this room! It’s so sweet. I really like the way you used the bird and branch decals. Looks great!
Hope you have a great weekend, Susan! 🙂
Julia @ Hooked on Houses’s last blog post..Hooked on Fresh Flowers at Home
Hi Diana,
I would find something similar about each of them. Either the same size, frame color, matting, or perhaps all black/white and arrange them first on the floor, then to the wall. To keep them in the right position, us a little putty tack at the base of each frame.
Or, how about a nice digital frame that scrolls through the pictures?
Susan
My mother has a lot of family pictures of all sizes, how can I help her with a good layout. She wants to exibit them not scrapbooking. Please help me with that.
Thank,
Diana
With kids you just can’t clutter it up. They’ll do that just fine on their own. lol
pink, little girl room, BUT you kept it simple. I live it.
Hey Kathy,
Yes, pink has it’s place when used properly! Lol
And I did see the pink bedding on your blog…very cute but not too cutsie – 🙂
This looks great! I love it! Of course, I’m a pink fiend myself (minus the princess paraphenalia too). Did you see the girl’s bedroom I posted on my blog on bedding? Great job Susan!