Skyler's Bedroom

Here is one stellar example of what a little time, patience and talent can do to make-over a child's room. Check out this bedroom re-vamp Natalie accomplished last weekend. Below Natalie explains how she used her daughter and other designers as inspiration to transform Skyler's furniture all on her own. This is a fantastic DIY success story.



Natalie: We got the furniture from a classified ad in the Washington Post- and I immediately hated it when my mom brought it over. I pulled inspiration from Skyler's personality, her favorite colors, coloring books, Russian lacquer boxes, Mackenzie Childs AWESOME stuff and just my own brain and imagination.



The furniture is all ugly. Its heavy duty wood and particle board with some kind of laminate finish and just painted.

BEFORE


It was really heavy and good quality- just nasty looking. Second hand furniture is great if you have vision and its super cheap! Look on Craigslist or Washington Post Classifieds for retro or vintage stuff or yard sales are good too. Look for mostly wood or particle board - metal would be hard to do well I think. Throw on some cool touches like a funky new set of sheets and pillows, and some fab wall art to boot or a new mosquito net and you have a made over room in a weekend. Pick colors you love and ones that energize you so or soothe you depending on what you want your room's purpose to be. I made skylers bed look like a princess's coloring book and mixed some metallics in with the mirrors to kick it up from just flat colors.

Tools:
-quart of pure white latex trim paint in semi gloss
-variety of tube acrylic paints in primary pigments
-plastic solo cups
-a million sizes of brushes, mostly flat edged
-tons of sharpies (Various use stages- brand new through blunt but not dry)
-hot glue gun
-craft glue
-mini mirrors
-wooden balls
-drapery rod acorns
-wooden letters
-swarovski crystals + gems



What else you'll need:
Patience and a space to work in. Some paper helped for the bottom of the legs so I could get the very bottom of the posts.


Time allotted:
The bed took me a good 3-4 days to do and I put in some serious hours.

VOILA!




AFTER-HEADBOARD:




AFTER-FOOTBOARD:





The colors, design and execution are fantastic! I know I would have adored this when I was Skyler's age.



Look at the detail in the crisp black and white diamond-shaped checkered posts. The gold detail takes it to a whole other level. These posts may be my favorite part.




Clearly she does too.




Next Natalie will tackle the 2 book shelves, 2 dressers a night stand and mirror.