The Girls New Surfer Room Is DONE!!!

The Girls Are Crazy Excited!!!!

Wow!  I've been working on the design of this room since last summer, and the actual transformation of the room since the first day of 2014.  It's been a labor of love and worth every ounce of energy I've put into it.  The girls LOVE their new room!!!!!!  We've went from a tomboy styled Cars room, to a hip surfer girl room that they're excited to show all their friends when they come over.  What more can two little big girls ask for?  Sorry it's taken me so long to post pictures.  We've been go go go lately.

If you'd like to see the planning that went into this room and the before pictures, please see my  previous post ... A New Year, A New Room.  And yes, you might notice that the slide did not happen.  Boo!!!!!  Brian thought it would make the room too much of a play place instead of a sleep place.  Kill Joy!  Haha!  The girls love it anyways ... although they do bring up the slide now and then.

So without further ado, here are some pictures of the girls new room!

The bed was existing.  I really couldn't tell you who made it, but I did buy it at USA Baby if that helps.  The bedding is from the "Surfs Up Tropic" bedding collection.  I got my set off of Ebay, but you can find it several places online.  The curtains and blue accent pillows on the bed are from Anna's Linens.  The blue rug (I cut up to fit the loft and floor) is from Target.  The grass window valances are from Shindigz.com.  They were table skirts that I cut up and glued to a curtain rod.  The surfboard sign is custom cut by a friend of ours and I painted it myself.  The surfboard decals on the wall are from Pottery Barn Kids.  Sorry, can't remember where the clock is from, but I did use nail polish to paint the numbers on it.

The same friend of ours that cut out the surfboard made this awesome loft for us!!!!  Isn't it awesome?!?!  I did all the painting on it.  The little table and chairs under the loft and the stuffed animal storage hanger are from Ikea.  The Hello Kitty wall decal is from Fat Head.  The bed sheets are from Pottery Barn Kids.

The dresser is from Ikea.  The bookshelf on top of the dresser was a companion piece with the bunk beds.  The light under the bunk bed and under the loft are from Ikea.  The star knobs are from Rejuvenated Creations on Etsy.  Please feel free to ask me if I forgot to list the source of anything.  I'm happy to answer any questions you might have.

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!!!!

Fun With The Kids - Questionnaires

I don't know about you, but summertime is my busiest time of the year.  That's when the girls are out of school and I have to find ways to entertain them.  You can only watch so many movies, play in the sprinklers so long and when the temperature kicks up to 110 degrees, going outside is out of the question all together (that's us right now).  So what do you do when you're stuck indoors?  This past Father's Day I found a new fun pastime for the girls... Questionnaires.

I came across the idea of questionnaires while cruising around Pinterest trying to find something to make Brian for Father's Day.  Your kids fill in a sheet of paper that asks questions like, "Daddy's Name Is", Daddy Is ? Years Old", Daddy Loves Me Because".  The list goes on and on.  Each questionnaire I found had it's own spin on cute questions to ask and some even incorporated an area to draw their own picture of dad (bonus for my artistic little girls).  The girls took a little while to understand the idea of making up their own answers, but once they realized it was just for fun they were spitting out answers left and right.  It was a great way to teach them creative thinking and that there is no right or wrong answer.  By the end of it they were laughing like crazy reading what each other wrote.  The best part was when they gave them to their dad though.  He was cracking up and will keep these forever.  I'm pretty sure we'll even make it a tradition from here on out.

So this sparked my interest.  I want to make my own questionnaire!!!  And... yep, I did it!  Hope you and your kids have fun with my "I LOVE SUMMER" questionnaire.

Click HERE to download this FREE printable.

Below is a list of some of the orther cute questionnaires that I found.  I plan to take them with us on our flight out to Connecticut next month.  They are sure to make the hours fly by and keep us laughing while we're at it.  Hope you have fun with them too!

"All About My Dad"

"All About My Dad"

"All About Mom" or "All About Grandma"

"My Mom or My Grandma"

"Year End Time Capsule Questionnaire"

"Birthday Questionnaires"

"All About My Teacher"

"All About Me Robot"