The Girls' Room...

Once upon a time, when my girls were but tiny little morsels of who they are today, I painted their room 4 different pastel shades. We replaced the ugly trim in their room with white trim (which, admittedly, looked a little weird against the super dark 1970's stained closet doors) and the white trim, well, it could've used a bit of sprucing up before we put it up, but we slapped it up and called it a day.

Then, my parents decided to replace their "still decent but definitely used and yet in much better condition than ours" carpet and they offered us their old stuff. We thought, sure, why not and then set out to determine which of the our rooms' carpets were worse than the others.

It was basically a draw...all of the carpets coming in so close to one another in their yuckiness, but the girls' room won, what with theirs being the only Berber carpet. Ew. Berber. Who invented that?

Anyway, we decided that since we'd be taking out the carpet, what better time to spruce up that grimy white trim (that should've been spruced up before it was installed) and paint the room. With the girls getting older, and Belle approaching *gasp* *sob* *wail* teenagehood, we thought we'd "grow it up" a bit and give them something that'll last them a while.

Originally, Belle wanted turquoise...guys, do you have any idea how many blasted shades of turquoise exist in this world of ours????? There is grayish turquoise, greenish turquoise, blueish turquoise, blueish grayish greenish turquoise, grayish greenish blueish turquoise, greenish...well, you get the idea. UGH. I'd pick one out, then she'd pick one out then suddenly they all looked too blue or too mint green or too gray.

And my mind was on the verge of exploding all over the paint section in Hardware Hank. I went out on a limb, grabbed a paint chip and gingerly asked Belle, "How about raspberry, instead?". She squinted and furrowed her brow and tilted her head this way and that way and scratched her chin and then said, "Hmmmm."

She makes decisions like her mom.

Ultimately, after standing in the paint section of Hardware Hank for 87 years, she decided that yes, raspberry would suffice.

To say she is pleased with the result is an understatement! And me too! It's adorable. The white trim POPS against the deep raspberry and the room looks so cute! Still girlish, but less babyish without those pastels.

I don't have any "real" before pictures...we're so bad about that. I think we're too spontaneous to remember to take before pictures so that leaves me rifling through photos on my hard drive trying to find a photo that shows you what the project looked like before we tore into it! Gah. Gotta get better at that.

And, now I can't find anything on my harddrive to show you...imagine a room full of CLUTTER (boots, shovels, snow toys...someone *coughBellecough* didn't want to put her Christmas loot with the rest of us mere mortals' stuff) and poorly arranged.

Their bed was against one wall, with a section of floor free then the doll house, her desk and a bunch of other crap was against the other wall...making the room feel terribly small!

Here is a photo of the paint job before:

And the now:

And the arrangement:

We got rid of the stupid, ugly, always getting broken bi fold doors (who invented bi fold doors?! Prolly the same person that invented ugly Berber carpet...) and replaced them with white curtains. (This is still a work in progress...we're going to replace the flimsy silver tension rod with a white dowel.)

We took down the ugly curtains...and still have yet to find something to replace them, and we're on the hunt for a bedding set.

Here are a couple I've seen around the interwebs...cast your vote!

#1...from Bed, Bath and Beyond:

#2...from Overstock.com:

#3...from JCPenney:

#4...also from JCPenney:

And, GO!