Charlotte's Big Girl Room
I've been pretty excited about getting to start over and decorate our new house, and I've been really enjoying seeing the transformations of every room. But if I'm being honest, I've probably been the most excited about Charlotte's room. Because, if I'm being completely honest, I've been planning and preparing for her "big girl" room since a few months after she was born. Since we didn't find out her gender before she was born, I created a gender neutral nursery full of greys and whites and some green. And even though I loved that room so much, a part of me got pretty excited when Charlotte was born, knowing that I'd one day get to design a little girl's bedroom.
A handful of months after she was born, I started collecting things that I wanted to use in her future room. At thrift stores, in little downtown boutiques, in my own collection of artwork, at Hobby Lobby; I'd snag things and store them away in my old dresser that I knew would be perfect for a kid's room someday. And what I really love is that all of those things made it into what is now her big girl room. It all still came together, despite us moving to a different state and a different house and having an entirely different layout than we'd originally envisioned. All those little trinkets and wall decorations I'd collected and scavenged came together to make the cutest little room. I also love that very few things had to be purchased right now in order to put the room together. Because most of it had been collected over time, we only needed to get the last few things to actually finish the room (which was really nice for the budget).
So first, some back story. When we moved into this house, we knew there would be a lot of shuffling of furniture to make everything work for both the temporary and the long term. One of the rooms that experienced this shuffling was what is now Charlotte's bedroom. JTs parents stayed with us for a few days less than a week after we moved in, and we needed a bed for them to sleep on during that time. Since we don't have a designated guest room anymore in this house, we needed to use the "extra" kid's bedroom as the temporary guest room for them. So the queen bed got moved into Charlotte's room, and the nursery got set up for Charlotte temporarily. (This didn't mean anything to her, since she had always been in her crib. With the move to New Mexico and then the move to Arizona, we just never bothered to take her out of the crib and she didn't know any different. We had always kind of thought that there would be another baby kicking her out of the crib, but there hasn't been one yet and she's been content to stay in.)
We kept the temporary guest bedroom set up for the duration of JTs parents' visit, and then long enough after that to sell the mattress and box spring. Once we sold them and got them cleared out, we were free to start getting Charlotte's new room ready for her. It took some time, but once the ball started rolling, it all came together pretty fast.
Originally, my plan had always been to paint her walls purple, in the lavender family. I think I had initially been wanting to pick a feminine color without being overtly pink, but then it ended up working well because her favorite color is purple and she wants everything in her life to be purple. But once we moved into this particular house (with the 12 foot ceilings), and we also realized that maybe one day she (or whoever is living in this room) won't want the walls to be purple anymore, that might be kind of a pain to change. So we left the grey walls as is and chose some purple accent items instead. It ended up working really well.
The beds themselves were a gift from my aunt and uncle. They were my cousins' childhood (and middle-age and teenage) beds and came with matching wood headboards complete with bookshelves. When my aunt and uncle were in the process of moving into their retirement home, they let JT and I come weed through their garage and take what we wanted, and we took - among other things - these beds. We stuck them down in the basement in Virginia to be used at a later date, and didn't really think about them again. But we have no basement here in Arizona, and we also have no extra bedrooms to be working with. So they sat in the garage till the queen guest bed was sold, and then they were moved into their permanent home in Charlotte's room.
I had originally been planning on painting the beds as well. They are oak laminate from the '90s, and they originally had these colored panels inserted into the fronts of the drawers.
There were different panel options with additional colors, but I wasn't crazy about the look. I figured we'd just paint both beds (read: sand, prime and paint, because laminate) and I didn't really want to but I knew they'd match the room better and make me happier. But when Charlotte and I were playing around with them one day, I discovered that the panels don't have to just be swapped...they could also be completely removed. Behind the colored panels was just the same wood as the rest of the bed. And that didn't look so bad.
So we removed the panels completely, removed the wooden drawer pulls (more on that in one second), and called it a day with the beds. Suddenly, by deciding to not paint the walls and not paint the beds, this whole project got a whole lot easier and quicker, which is always nice.
Since there's just Charlotte in this room so far, and we have the dresser and the huge closet, I don't really need to put much in the bed drawers. But I do have an extra set of sheets and pillowcases for each bed underneath, as well as some extra blankets of Charlotte's.
The dresser and toy chest are both just recycled from our home. I got the dresser for free from one of the secretaries in the College of Education when I was working as a Teaching Assistant during graduate school, and I painted it before I moved to Northern Virginia. The blue drawers, white clouds and hot air balloon were, believe it or not, how I painted it for myself as a 23 year old. I don't remember why that was the color scheme and paint job I picked, but I do remember finishing it and realizing "huh...this looks like it belongs in a small child's bedroom." But at that point it was easier to leave it, so leave it I did. And now here it is, in a small child's bedroom. I did paint over the stripes of the hot air balloon, though, to make it match the room a little better.
Like I said before, a lot of the art and wall decorations that made it into this room were either collected specifically for Charlotte's eventual big girl room, or were "shopped" from other places in the house. The giraffe print had been in the living room gallery wall in Virginia. The large wooden window frame had been a favorite and beloved thrift store find in Virginia that I could never figure out a use for till now. The sunset painting was one that I completed at a mom's paint night with our church in Albuquerque, and it reminded me of Moana so I wrote out some lyrics to "How Far I'll Go" on it and saved it for Charlotte's room. (When I read her the words I had written on it, her face lit up and she jumped to hug me and said "thank you, Mommy!")
I love how so many things found new life and new purpose in this room. I had gotten that dinosaur piggy bank before Charlotte was born for the nursery, because it was a cute little pop of green for the room. But her love for dinosaurs made it easy to put it in this room now. The lamp is lovely for middle of the night potty breaks or nightmares when I have to come in and talk to her, but don't want to turn the bright overhead light on. Having this lamp right next to the bedroom door but also out of her reach is really convenient. And that sweet, beautiful picture of Charlotte and her dogs. We had those family pictures taken in the back yard of our Virginia house before we moved to Albuquerque, and it was the cutest one in the bunch so we had it made into a huge canvas print. But the picture always seemed pretty bittersweet to me when a few months later we had to find Rosie a new home with our friends in Colorado. But Charlotte loves that picture and loves Rosie so much, and it made perfect sense to put the big picture right here in her room. She loves being able to see it all the time.
The other wall over the beds came together so well. The huge dinosaurs and the "Rawr" piece all came from Hobby Lobby in Albuquerque, and they hung in Charlotte's room there. I'll admit, though, that their original orange, blue and green colors bummed me out because they didn't match my vision for her room. Until I realized that - duh - I could paint them and make them match. Which is exactly what I did. The adorable "C is for Charlotte" print is from a good friend in Virginia who made it for Charlotte when she was born. The skull and flowers (on wood) is from Hobby Lobby, the white mirror is from Goodwill, the butterflies are from a shop in Old Town Winchester, Virginia, and the flowered cloth frame is from IKEA but the print inside was made by me (quote taken from The Help).
Oh I love this little wall. It makes me so happy to look at.
And the big element of whimsy in the corner above the closet comes mostly from the adorable bird cage and parrot, that came from my grandfather. I honestly don't remember why or when we accumulated it or what the story behind it is, but I just kind of always remember it being around in my parents' house when I was growing up. It briefly went to JMU with one of my sisters, but eventually it found its way into my house because I thought it would be cute in Charlotte's room someday. Add some colored pom poms (grey from The Lady Jane shop in Harrisonburg and the pink/purple ones from Target), and it's a pretty fun little corner.
Other than the purple black out curtains (which we got from Amazon) and the little area rug (which I snagged from Walmart), the other big item in the room is the bedding. The quilt on the left is for Charlotte's bed and has been waiting patiently for so long to be used and appreciated. We commissioned the creation of this beautiful quilt all the way back in spring of 2016, when we asked a good friend of mine in Virginia to make it for Charlotte's October birthday. I picked the quilt pattern, I met Marilla at Hobby Lobby, and we spent a few hours picking out the enormous pile of fabrics that would be needed to make the quilt (while both of our very young daughters ran aimlessly through the fabric section and we tried to decide what matched and what was the right shade of green or pink and also tried to keep our kids from destroying everything within a 20 foot radius). Marilla then cut all the squares and then brought them over to my house so we could literally lay them all out on the living room floor to design the actual quilt. This took so long, guys. Charlotte and Ellie tried to play in the next room while my sister attempted to get work done and Captain almost had a heart attack from wanting to step and lay all over the tiny quilt squares and I stood on top of the couch and pointed out directions to Marilla to move fabric pieces in one direction or another. When we finally decided it looked good, we took all the pictures and she picked up all the squares. And then took it home to make it.
This quilt, guys, was such a labor of love. I love this quilt. I love that I helped design this quilt. I love that the fabric we used for the back of the quilt is the same fabric I used to make the crib skirt for our nursery. I love that it is so special and beautiful and quirky and wonderfully fun. There are flamingos and pineapples and arrows and flowers on this quilt. There is so much and it is so fun. And it is the perfect accent for this room.
The "hello" accent pillow was just one we had in our enormous accent pillow arsenal, as is the llama pillow that fits so perfectly on the other bed.
(Fun fact: the llama pillow was made by my sister Courtney last year when she was living with us, and she didn't even make it match the room on purpose. It just does, perfectly, and that makes me so incredibly happy.) I let Charlotte pick out the comforter set that would be on the other bed, and even though I was prepared to steer her in a different direction if what she chose didn't match the room, she chose the perfect - and matching - comforter and it's adorable. I love that it fits in the room without taking any attention away from Charlotte's quilt.
Oh my goodness, friends. I love how this room turned out. It is so cute and so fun and so perfectly Charlotte's personality. And what makes me happiest is that she loves it too. She has said "I'm so excited about my room!" a hundred times in last couple weeks since we moved her in. And that's what makes me the happiest of all.
*Edit: I just realized that I never explained the "more on that" about the wooden drawer pulls we removed from the bed drawers. Well...we took them out and said we'd replace them with new drawer pulls. We forgot to measure but went to the store and got two different sizes that we liked, figuring we'd return the ones that didn't fit. When I went to install them, though, we realized that the old drawer pulls were a really weird size that no current drawer pulls come in. So none of the ones we bought would work, nor would any from the store. But when we tried to look for the original drawer pulls...we realized we had accidentally thrown them out. So there are no drawer pulls at all on the drawers, but it's okay. I don't have an issue opening them, and we don't use them too often anyway. So the lesson here is clearly that it pays to hold on to the original hardware until you know you aren't going to be using it anymore.
A handful of months after she was born, I started collecting things that I wanted to use in her future room. At thrift stores, in little downtown boutiques, in my own collection of artwork, at Hobby Lobby; I'd snag things and store them away in my old dresser that I knew would be perfect for a kid's room someday. And what I really love is that all of those things made it into what is now her big girl room. It all still came together, despite us moving to a different state and a different house and having an entirely different layout than we'd originally envisioned. All those little trinkets and wall decorations I'd collected and scavenged came together to make the cutest little room. I also love that very few things had to be purchased right now in order to put the room together. Because most of it had been collected over time, we only needed to get the last few things to actually finish the room (which was really nice for the budget).
So first, some back story. When we moved into this house, we knew there would be a lot of shuffling of furniture to make everything work for both the temporary and the long term. One of the rooms that experienced this shuffling was what is now Charlotte's bedroom. JTs parents stayed with us for a few days less than a week after we moved in, and we needed a bed for them to sleep on during that time. Since we don't have a designated guest room anymore in this house, we needed to use the "extra" kid's bedroom as the temporary guest room for them. So the queen bed got moved into Charlotte's room, and the nursery got set up for Charlotte temporarily. (This didn't mean anything to her, since she had always been in her crib. With the move to New Mexico and then the move to Arizona, we just never bothered to take her out of the crib and she didn't know any different. We had always kind of thought that there would be another baby kicking her out of the crib, but there hasn't been one yet and she's been content to stay in.)
We kept the temporary guest bedroom set up for the duration of JTs parents' visit, and then long enough after that to sell the mattress and box spring. Once we sold them and got them cleared out, we were free to start getting Charlotte's new room ready for her. It took some time, but once the ball started rolling, it all came together pretty fast.
Originally, my plan had always been to paint her walls purple, in the lavender family. I think I had initially been wanting to pick a feminine color without being overtly pink, but then it ended up working well because her favorite color is purple and she wants everything in her life to be purple. But once we moved into this particular house (with the 12 foot ceilings), and we also realized that maybe one day she (or whoever is living in this room) won't want the walls to be purple anymore, that might be kind of a pain to change. So we left the grey walls as is and chose some purple accent items instead. It ended up working really well.
The beds themselves were a gift from my aunt and uncle. They were my cousins' childhood (and middle-age and teenage) beds and came with matching wood headboards complete with bookshelves. When my aunt and uncle were in the process of moving into their retirement home, they let JT and I come weed through their garage and take what we wanted, and we took - among other things - these beds. We stuck them down in the basement in Virginia to be used at a later date, and didn't really think about them again. But we have no basement here in Arizona, and we also have no extra bedrooms to be working with. So they sat in the garage till the queen guest bed was sold, and then they were moved into their permanent home in Charlotte's room.
I had originally been planning on painting the beds as well. They are oak laminate from the '90s, and they originally had these colored panels inserted into the fronts of the drawers.
There were different panel options with additional colors, but I wasn't crazy about the look. I figured we'd just paint both beds (read: sand, prime and paint, because laminate) and I didn't really want to but I knew they'd match the room better and make me happier. But when Charlotte and I were playing around with them one day, I discovered that the panels don't have to just be swapped...they could also be completely removed. Behind the colored panels was just the same wood as the rest of the bed. And that didn't look so bad.
So we removed the panels completely, removed the wooden drawer pulls (more on that in one second), and called it a day with the beds. Suddenly, by deciding to not paint the walls and not paint the beds, this whole project got a whole lot easier and quicker, which is always nice.
Since there's just Charlotte in this room so far, and we have the dresser and the huge closet, I don't really need to put much in the bed drawers. But I do have an extra set of sheets and pillowcases for each bed underneath, as well as some extra blankets of Charlotte's.
The dresser and toy chest are both just recycled from our home. I got the dresser for free from one of the secretaries in the College of Education when I was working as a Teaching Assistant during graduate school, and I painted it before I moved to Northern Virginia. The blue drawers, white clouds and hot air balloon were, believe it or not, how I painted it for myself as a 23 year old. I don't remember why that was the color scheme and paint job I picked, but I do remember finishing it and realizing "huh...this looks like it belongs in a small child's bedroom." But at that point it was easier to leave it, so leave it I did. And now here it is, in a small child's bedroom. I did paint over the stripes of the hot air balloon, though, to make it match the room a little better.
Like I said before, a lot of the art and wall decorations that made it into this room were either collected specifically for Charlotte's eventual big girl room, or were "shopped" from other places in the house. The giraffe print had been in the living room gallery wall in Virginia. The large wooden window frame had been a favorite and beloved thrift store find in Virginia that I could never figure out a use for till now. The sunset painting was one that I completed at a mom's paint night with our church in Albuquerque, and it reminded me of Moana so I wrote out some lyrics to "How Far I'll Go" on it and saved it for Charlotte's room. (When I read her the words I had written on it, her face lit up and she jumped to hug me and said "thank you, Mommy!")
I love how so many things found new life and new purpose in this room. I had gotten that dinosaur piggy bank before Charlotte was born for the nursery, because it was a cute little pop of green for the room. But her love for dinosaurs made it easy to put it in this room now. The lamp is lovely for middle of the night potty breaks or nightmares when I have to come in and talk to her, but don't want to turn the bright overhead light on. Having this lamp right next to the bedroom door but also out of her reach is really convenient. And that sweet, beautiful picture of Charlotte and her dogs. We had those family pictures taken in the back yard of our Virginia house before we moved to Albuquerque, and it was the cutest one in the bunch so we had it made into a huge canvas print. But the picture always seemed pretty bittersweet to me when a few months later we had to find Rosie a new home with our friends in Colorado. But Charlotte loves that picture and loves Rosie so much, and it made perfect sense to put the big picture right here in her room. She loves being able to see it all the time.
The other wall over the beds came together so well. The huge dinosaurs and the "Rawr" piece all came from Hobby Lobby in Albuquerque, and they hung in Charlotte's room there. I'll admit, though, that their original orange, blue and green colors bummed me out because they didn't match my vision for her room. Until I realized that - duh - I could paint them and make them match. Which is exactly what I did. The adorable "C is for Charlotte" print is from a good friend in Virginia who made it for Charlotte when she was born. The skull and flowers (on wood) is from Hobby Lobby, the white mirror is from Goodwill, the butterflies are from a shop in Old Town Winchester, Virginia, and the flowered cloth frame is from IKEA but the print inside was made by me (quote taken from The Help).
Oh I love this little wall. It makes me so happy to look at.
And the big element of whimsy in the corner above the closet comes mostly from the adorable bird cage and parrot, that came from my grandfather. I honestly don't remember why or when we accumulated it or what the story behind it is, but I just kind of always remember it being around in my parents' house when I was growing up. It briefly went to JMU with one of my sisters, but eventually it found its way into my house because I thought it would be cute in Charlotte's room someday. Add some colored pom poms (grey from The Lady Jane shop in Harrisonburg and the pink/purple ones from Target), and it's a pretty fun little corner.
Other than the purple black out curtains (which we got from Amazon) and the little area rug (which I snagged from Walmart), the other big item in the room is the bedding. The quilt on the left is for Charlotte's bed and has been waiting patiently for so long to be used and appreciated. We commissioned the creation of this beautiful quilt all the way back in spring of 2016, when we asked a good friend of mine in Virginia to make it for Charlotte's October birthday. I picked the quilt pattern, I met Marilla at Hobby Lobby, and we spent a few hours picking out the enormous pile of fabrics that would be needed to make the quilt (while both of our very young daughters ran aimlessly through the fabric section and we tried to decide what matched and what was the right shade of green or pink and also tried to keep our kids from destroying everything within a 20 foot radius). Marilla then cut all the squares and then brought them over to my house so we could literally lay them all out on the living room floor to design the actual quilt. This took so long, guys. Charlotte and Ellie tried to play in the next room while my sister attempted to get work done and Captain almost had a heart attack from wanting to step and lay all over the tiny quilt squares and I stood on top of the couch and pointed out directions to Marilla to move fabric pieces in one direction or another. When we finally decided it looked good, we took all the pictures and she picked up all the squares. And then took it home to make it.
This quilt, guys, was such a labor of love. I love this quilt. I love that I helped design this quilt. I love that the fabric we used for the back of the quilt is the same fabric I used to make the crib skirt for our nursery. I love that it is so special and beautiful and quirky and wonderfully fun. There are flamingos and pineapples and arrows and flowers on this quilt. There is so much and it is so fun. And it is the perfect accent for this room.
The "hello" accent pillow was just one we had in our enormous accent pillow arsenal, as is the llama pillow that fits so perfectly on the other bed.
(Fun fact: the llama pillow was made by my sister Courtney last year when she was living with us, and she didn't even make it match the room on purpose. It just does, perfectly, and that makes me so incredibly happy.) I let Charlotte pick out the comforter set that would be on the other bed, and even though I was prepared to steer her in a different direction if what she chose didn't match the room, she chose the perfect - and matching - comforter and it's adorable. I love that it fits in the room without taking any attention away from Charlotte's quilt.
Oh my goodness, friends. I love how this room turned out. It is so cute and so fun and so perfectly Charlotte's personality. And what makes me happiest is that she loves it too. She has said "I'm so excited about my room!" a hundred times in last couple weeks since we moved her in. And that's what makes me the happiest of all.
*Edit: I just realized that I never explained the "more on that" about the wooden drawer pulls we removed from the bed drawers. Well...we took them out and said we'd replace them with new drawer pulls. We forgot to measure but went to the store and got two different sizes that we liked, figuring we'd return the ones that didn't fit. When I went to install them, though, we realized that the old drawer pulls were a really weird size that no current drawer pulls come in. So none of the ones we bought would work, nor would any from the store. But when we tried to look for the original drawer pulls...we realized we had accidentally thrown them out. So there are no drawer pulls at all on the drawers, but it's okay. I don't have an issue opening them, and we don't use them too often anyway. So the lesson here is clearly that it pays to hold on to the original hardware until you know you aren't going to be using it anymore.
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