This is a Kmart hack that wasn't supposed to happen, but I am really glad it did.
Over the past few weeks I have been getting ready for a big makeover of Chloe's room. We had decided for her 6th birthday we would give her the 'big girl' bedroom she had been wanting for ages. Her room was not by any means babyish but she had never really loved her room. The styling had always been very vintage, shabby chic with lots of vintage floral fabrics and white distressed furniture.
She is a pretty outgoing and energetic child and it just isn't her style, to be honest its not really mine either. She wanted bright, light and (in her words) like Ikea! I spent many hours online searching for bedroom inspiration. Chloe was not much help, her latest display of decor accessories was two rocks from the garden and an empty lip gloss container...because it was pink! She is only five after all. Chloe wanted dark red pineapples and soft pink. It took me a while to understand her vision of soft pink, she was not talking about the colour, she was talking about being soft to touch, like gloss paint! Ummm dark red pineapples...interesting.
I bought a fabulous (and a bit ugly) mid century dressing table and started designing her room around that. I had plans to completly restyle it, painting it white while leaving some timber features. The rest of her room would be in a minimal scandi style with lots of white, pale pink, mint and grey. She liked all the ideas I showed her so on we went!
Before.....
After.....
I started to clear all the clutter from her room, I had sold most of her furniture so I needed to get it all emptied. She had quite the collection of 'treasures', this is a child who throws nothing away! After the first big clean up I walked into her room to find her in tears. I asked her what was wrong and she told me she was worried I was getting rid of everything she found special. She was sad I didn't find her things important enough to keep. Feeling terrible, I just packed it in a special box for her to keep. This should have been the first alarm bell.
The following week we went shopping for her new bed, she was so excited she was getting a new bed. It was a very confusing shopping trip for her as she thought a double bed was a bunk! She finally got with the program and we found and ordered a great double bed. While on our shopping trip we also bought a side table and lamp. They were only cheapies from Kmart but I liked how they fitted in with the scandi scheme.
We got home and put her new white lamp on her white table that will go next to her white bed. She looked at me with sadness in her eyes and said "I like white, but I don't want it, I like pink and aqua and rainbow." DING light bulb moment! I had only been asking her if she liked pictures/accessories I had chosen and hardly asked her what she wanted! She said she only liked it because I liked it.
Most of the pictures I had been drooling over on pinterest had been styled for either glossy magazine spreads or for children who are too young to have an opinion. I had forgotten this room was for a little girl who loved ballet, rainbows, collecting flowers, jumping on the trampoline and still believed in pink.
So I asked the most important question "What would you like?" Praying she wouldn't say dark red pineapples. She simply said "Pink and aqua. I want spots and flowers on my lamp, just like my old one." So that is what we did.
We also did a makeover on an gumtree bargain chair....
Before...
After...
Her room is far from finished but its coming along nicely, she loves it so far. I asked her tonight what her favourite thing in her room was, she answered the best answer ever "YOU!"
Jodie xx
