25 Oct It’s Time To Re-Decorate My Daughter’s Bedroom!

For those of you who don’t know… I was an interior designer in another life!

Nothing makes me a happier then home decorating projects. I LOVE everything about them…..the contractors, the paint fumes, the trips to Home Depot and even the mess. I love the rush of running through Homesense or Ikea with a full basket and the exhilaration of receiving my online purchases at my front door from Restoration Hardware.  And the most fulfilling aspect  of  designing my OWN  space is that I can take RISKS with colours, textures, and design! I love to make changes in my home and every project I’ve conquered so far has been exciting.

So last summer,  I decided to surprise my daughter with a newly designed bedroom to match her new tween status and attitude!  Another fun and exciting project – but for some reason I seemed to be stalling.

First night in big girl bed, 2003

She had been begging me to redo her bedroom for months but I just wasn’t  quite emotionally ready to discard her “little girl” room. I liked her room the way it was… cluttered with stuffed animals, baby furniture and Salena Gomez posters.  Re-doing her room meant entering a new stage of her life, a more mature stage and I wasn’t sure I was ready for it.  I hated to admit it, but my baby girl was growing up.

Full length mirror for primping

She wasn’t into Barbies, princess dress-up or stickers anymore.  She had more mature tastes now, like Tiffany bracelets, manicures, texting and leopard shoes. It took some time but I needed to accept the reality that my daughter was now a tween. I was now determined  give her room a true OVERHAUL!

I worked energetically through the summer trying to make her room perfect. I researched new products like chalk board paint , magnetic primer, and high gloss floor paint. I spent countless hours online ordering bedding from Pottery Barn Teen and took numerous trips to Ikea and Benjamin Moore.

I wanted her bedroom to reflect the beautiful, soft spoken and creative young women she had become.

Gallery wall with black and white pictures

This decorating project is probably my most meaningful and memorable. It marked a milestone in my daughter’s life.  As a proud as I am to watch my kids grow and evolve through the different stages of their lives, I’m  also a bit saddened by it.  These changes (even the little ones like re-decorating a bedroom) mean letting go of the little person and watching them learn to fend for themselves. It’s about encouraging my kids to assert their independence, even if it means, that in each new phase, they lose a bit of their innocence along the way.

P.S. My daughter LOVES her new room!