The Big Reveal of a Big Girl Room (Take 2)

Last July my youngest daughter turned 5. Five is a pretty big deal. After all, you get to hold up all 5 fingers on one hand when someone asks your age. And because 5 is such a grand birthday I told my daughter she should think really hard about what she wanted as a gift and ask for something special. Most little girls would ask for an American Girl doll, maybe some special dress up clothes or even a trip to Chuck-E-Cheese (the horror). Of course, much to my husband’s chagrin our little 5 year old firecracker is her mother’s daughter. These were her special birthday requests (no joke)….

Blue walls in her bedroom (blue is her favorite color)
New tile in her bathroom
Hardwood floors
Rex the Dinosaur from Toy Story

While I LOVE her style and have those same requests, I thought those might be a little tough on the birthday budget. So for now, we settled for some blue paint and a dinosaur.

As a reminder, this is what my daughter’s room looked like when she was in a crib…

What it looked like once she transitioned to a twin bed…

And now, after she apparently turned into a 5 year old interior designer…

And when I say, “interior designer, ” I’m not kidding. This child flipped through an entire Sherwin-Williams fan deck, pointed to Byte Blue and said, “This is the one.” I humored her by purchasing a sample of Byte Blue, plus two others. When I painted samples on 3 separate pieces of foam board and showed them to her, once again my daughter immediately pointed to Byte Blue. She then proceeded to tell me one sample was way too light and the other looked “too greenish.” I’m completely serious. It was amazing. She also happened to be right. I now find myself asking her opinion on paint colors all the time. (Side note: Mother, if you’re reading this maybe you should hire your grandchild to choose colors for your living and dining rooms? She’ll give you a family discount!)

So once I gave into my 5 year old’s expertise, the hard part began….which was getting her to stop doing jigs of excitement in the middle of where I needed to paint.

Eventually, she settled down and I put her to work…

Finally, I started feeling badly about making her do everything so I took over and completed the transformation (per her approval, of course).

All I did was paint and rearrange the space. I didn’t purchase anything additional and kept all my beloved sentimental items that help the room tell a story.

My favorite is the original watercolor my mother comissioned a local artist to paint for me as a child.

The other art pieces are some vintage bunny and Joan Walsh Anglund prints my mother helped find at Round Top.

The room is complete with a rocking chair that belonged to my grandmother and is cozied up by a blanket my father’s cousin crocheted for me when I was an infant.

In the corner you will find a metal doll bed my grandmother painted for me when I was a small child. She even sewed the bedding herself. The doll on the left was mine and the one in the middle is the Baby Huggums from Madame Alexander my mother gave to my daughter when she was born (who needs American Girl?)

This room has quickly become my new favorite. It truly is amazing what a little paint and a sweet 5 year old’s vision can do for a space. Total cost? Less than $100 in materials. While I am definitely on board with my daughter’s suggestion of hardwood floors and new bathroom tile, we might need to hold off a while. Maybe that can be in the budget for her Sweet 16? It would probably be cheaper than a new car.