It's been a few weeks since I started work on my daughter's bedroom, so I thought it was about time I shared the design plan! I wrote here about my first design decision: to take it back from the dark side. Having served as my office for the past couple of years, the walls had been painted a rich, velvety chocolate, which I painted white. It may have taken 6 coats of paint to cover the aforementioned dark walls, but don't worry, I'm over it now. Just.

The finished room is being photographed today (yay!) so I thought I'd give you a sneak peak at the design before the pictures are ready. I know a lot of people love decorating children's rooms and feel it's an opportunity to go a bit wild and crazy, but I've never really felt that way. Maybe it's because I don't see many girls' rooms that inspire me; maybe it's because I'm just pretty averse to all things pastel pink and frilly, but I just wasn't really sure where to start with this room. Having 2 older boys, I've not really been exposed to much overt girliness up until now and I wasn't sure I really wanted to start with her room (although Abigail went off this morning wearing a forest fairy costume over a pink tutu and sparkly tights, so I think my time has come!)

I wanted to create a girl's bedroom that was strong, stylish, funky and a little bit boho. 'Does a 2 year old really need a stylish bedroom,' my husband asked? 'Can't we just paint it pink?' Honestly...
It's not that I don't like pink – I've seen some really stylish pink rooms recently – it's the traditional 'pretty, pastel girls room' use of it that offends me. Our little girl definitely has a strong, determined personality and I wanted her room to reflect that. I wanted strong colours, warm and cosy textures with a few natural elements throw in. Oh, and I needed to do it on a strict budget (hence starting with a shed full of white paint – 6 coats, did I mention that)?



With budget in mind, I thought I'd better scour the house to see what I already had and start from there. The list looked something like this:-
1. A single bed with trundle underneath. Deathly boring, no headboard, footboard, valance or redeeming features, it looked pretty much like this one (i.e. grim!) This has been a spare bed for years but has hardly been used and was already in the room, so it was a no-brainer to make it the big girl's bed.
2. Beige gingham curtains – these had been used in the nursery for all three of our children. They are good quality fabric and blackout lined, so whilst they wouldn't have been my first choice I was pretty sure I could make them work.
3. Ikea Hemnes chest of drawers. White. Functional. There's a reason why every other kids' room in the land has one of these!
4. White animal head decoration – I think he's a gazelle or an antelope or something, but he's quirky, cute and an allowable cliche because (a) he was a bargain for £10 from M&S a few years back and (b) I love him!
5. Very old Ikea sideboard – previously a drinks cabinet in our old dining room, latterly a storage cabinet in my office. A good size, but the glass doors made it less than ideal for a child's bedroom.
6. Pink and brown striped kilim rug (useful for covering the nice coffee stain right in the middle of the beige wool carpet, a little leaving gift from a previous au pair!)

With these inspiring (ahem) starting points in mind, I started pinning images I liked. I shared some in the first post on this bedroom – click here if you missed it, but here's what I ended up with as my inspiration:

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I wanted it to be feminine but definite, and I clearly love pink, orange and yellow! The Jonathan Adler room top left was a pretty big source of inspiration, I loved the idea of making my daughter's bed a real statement, but cosy too. I've been dying to use some orange in the house somewhere – this felt like the perfect opportunity. A few weeks of pondering and pinning later, this is the design concept I came up with for the room:



I went for plenty of bright fabrics – starting with orange velvet and yellow linen – 2 of my favourite textures and colours!  I love the bright, clashing pink combination. I went with stripes to bring in some pattern (I'm just not that into florals it seems) and offset these with a few more rustic/natural elements, like the Ikea Sinnerlig pendant lamp and organic British sheepskin rug. A few monochrome touches always help make a room in my book – hence the cushion and cute print. I hope this proves to be the perfect boho girl's bedroom makeover. I'll post the 'after' pictures as soon as I have them, but I'd love to hear what you think so far!