A clean slate...

I love Christmas!  Yes, I know it's January 5th.  But I love Christmas!  I put a Christmas tree in every room of our house.  Every bathroom, every bedroom, the library, the office, the kitchen, the dining room, the basement family room -- every room gets a Christmas tree.  I have five nativities, and eight Santas.  I don't even know how many snow men I have.

Every year I start decorating for Christmas on November 1.  Yes, November 1.  But when Christmas is over and done, I'm ready to put it all away until next year and start with a clean slate.  Usually, January brings a new home improvement project for me.  Sometimes it's simple, like repainting a room, or cleaning the cabinets, organizing the home gym, taking multiple loads of unwanted stuff to the GW.

But this January, it's my daughter's room.  I must admit, I have been dreading this make over.  Like most women and little girls, my daughter is prone to changing her mind.  A lot!  As soon as she would pick a color and style, something new would take it's place on the "cool" list.

However, she's really into the whole animal print theme.  That's really funny to me.  Over the summer, I re-did the kids bathroom.  Blue walls, brown shower curtain, and everything accent in animal print.  She hated it!  Or so she said.  I'm starting to wonder...

So here are the before pictures of her room.  I like to think of it as Rainbow Sherbet.  Let's see what you think...

This is Kayla's bed.  I bought this antique bed frame at a thrift store for $25.00 - Headboard and foot board.  But boy did it need some work.  I still can't believe the transformation.  I wish I had photos to share.

The quilt was hand cut, hand pieced, and hand quilted by my husband's late 89 year old grandmother.  It is a precious treasure, and was the inspiration for this room for the past four years.

The pillow was made by my husband's mother for Kayla's 9th birthday.

These are the glittery foam letters that spell out her name.  They were approximately 6 inches tall.  Very pretty, and very sparkly.  Just like my Kayla.

The curtains in the room are purple.  They really popped against the green walls.

This is our terrible idea of a bed skirt.  We downsized from a full size bed to a twin and I never bought a new bed skirt.  So I just used one of her old flat sheets with a couple of table cloths over top to make the scallops.  At the time I thought I was brilliant.  After looking at these photos now... not so much.

But the rug is cute!


So those are the before pics.  I must confess, it took us 4 hours of cleaning to get to the point where we could even take these pictures.  We had to clean and organize and sort and sift.  But the closet is now reorganized, cleaned and properly sorted.  Everything has a place, and I feel I can start this make over with little stress.


Now, for the clean slate.  I do love a clean slate!  It's as inspiring as a perfectly decorated space, if you ask me.

Here are the pics the night before the painting begins.

You can see the walls have been prepped, and the furniture is covered.

I just want to tell you a quick story about this desk.  When my husband and I married almost 20 years ago, I inherited my bedroom furniture.  It was a full sized bed, a dresser and a chest.  It is solid oak.  When Kayla came along, I painted the bed and chest white, leaving the dresser original oak.  When our son was born, he got the dresser, Kayla got the chest.

This summer, Kayla wanted a desk to do homework in her room.  I looked and looked but couldn't find anything I wanted or liked, that was worth the price.  Then one day, we were thrifting, and lo and behold, we spotted this desk.  It is identical -- I do mean identical -- to the furniture we already have.

I tossed around the idea of painting it white, like the rest of the furniture, but decided to leave it natural.  If she ever out grows it, we can pass it along to her brother without having to strip it and re stain it... His part of the set is unpainted.

What did I pay, you ask?  $40.00 for the desk and a solid oak chair.  

This is the chair.  I was taking it apart to recover the seat... The green gingham worked perfectly before... but wait until you see the new and improved.


I'll start the painting tomorrow... Should have pictures to show you by tomorrow evening, or Friday... Stop back by... See what you think...