A New Year With A New Room

It's that time again.  Time for a new look.  Time for a new theme.  Time for a new bedroom design!  My girls share the same room and they've had the same bedroom design since we've moved into this house ... so about 4 years?  They kind of got stuck with the design since we bought a model home and there were already tire tracks on the walls.  Being that their favorite movie was Cars at the time, we ran with it.  Now that they're older though, their tomboy natures are starting to fade away and their girlie personalities are coming out.  It's time for a change!

Now those of you that know me in real life, probably know that I'm an interior designer, so I'm all over any chance for a room makeover.  The tricky part was to convince my husband that this is what we should get the girls for Christmas this year.  It took some persuading, but he finally gave in!  Whoot whoot!  I've got a project on my hands!!!!

Ok, now here's what we had to work with.  I've taken pictures of all the views of the girls bedroom.  We're looking to keep costs down, so I'll be working with the existing furniture, yet adding a new look with paint and accessories... and a little something fun to give the room some flair (but it took me awhile to figure out what that was).

Since last summer I kind of pried into the girls minds to see what they wanted for a new room without telling them I wanted to do it for Christmas.  I just said one day we would do it.  We created a Pinterest Board for the Girls Bedroom with all their favorite rooms, and then I added upon it once I decided what theme I was going to go with.  Reagan was easy.  She 100% wanted a Hello Kitty room.  Riley was a little more difficult, but I finally settled on a surfer girl theme.  Check out some pictures below of the main elements I'm going to add to the room.

Once I picked out all the elements I got to work on the room drawings.  The room drawings were all part of my plan of how to present this gift on Christmas, which I'll show you in just a bit.  The design came together pretty quickly, and while putting the design together it dawned on me.  The WOW factor element that I am going to add to the room to get the girls excited is a slide!!!!!!  The will flip out with excitement!!!!!  Now if I can just get it all to work.  That's the real trick.  Here's what I came up with.

After I finished drawing up the floorplan and elevations I started out on my presentation.  I printed out the drawings large scale and then colored them in so that they would better show exactly what I wanted to do with the room.  I wanted a fun presentation that would make opening the gift exciting for the girls.  So after I colored everything, I found a box that was just the right size and taped all the drawings inside, so that when they opened it up they would see what looks like a dollhouse representation of their room!  They can even use the box as a Barbie dollhouse after opening it!  Bonus!!!!  Here's what it looked like when I was all finished.

Then for Christmas I wrapped it all up in pretty Christmas wrapping paper and waited to see the excitement on the girls faces.  At first there was confusion.  Is it a doll house?  They were excited enough for a house for their Barbies.  But after a bit of explanation and pointing out that the dollhouse looked very similar to their own room ... I got the excitement that I was hoping for.  Success!  They love the design and can't wait to transform their room.  We happened to be staying up in a cabin for Christmas and they wanted to pack up and head home ASAP to get started.  LOL!  I'm so glad they love it.

So next up is to actually start making the transformation.  The girls just so happen to be heading out camping with my inlaws from today, New Years Day, to next Monday before school starts again.  Perfect timing for me to get started on their room!!!!  I probably won't get it done, but I do know that we're breaking out the paint today.  Let the fun begin!!!!!  Stay tuned for an update on what the final room design looks like.  I think it's going to be quite the reveal.  So excited!!!!