A room fit for a princess

Lady Bug's room had wallpaper on one wall when we moved into this house 4 years ago. A very dated wallpaper too. She recently started asking her dad if he could take it down and paint her room. SO for her birthday we decided to do a very "on-a-tight-budget" room remodel. The wallpaper was on so well that we decided to just paint over it. We did three large stripes on the wall, two outer ones in a darker purpler and then center one a lighter shade. Then we did three large diamond shapes in the center in coordinating purples.

Then we bought a beaded chandelier at Ikea and a bed net at Ikea for a total of $40. We also bought 2 wall flower lights and a wall bug light. Although the bug light didn't necessarily go with the rest of the room Lady Bug was insisting we put it up.

For about $140 we remodeled  slightly and she is so excited. We can't even get her out of there now!

Here is the room BEFORE:

Here is the AFTER pictures:

UPDATED - Take a Tour of My Home - Lady Bug's room

As promised, here are some pictures of Lady Bug's rearranged room, but first you might need to click here to visit the first "Home Tour" pictures of her room.

Over Memorial Day weekend my goal was really deep clean my house, but knew for sure I wanted to move the furniture in the kids' rooms to vacuum under it. While I was doing that realized since it was being moved, why not re-arrange it? So I did. (Click here to see how I re-arranged Lefty's room)

Moving on to what the room looks like after I re-arranged furniture in there.

Picture taken from the doorway looking towards her window (Just remember I am a terrible photographer, but I took one picture with her curtains closed and another with them open - couldn't decide which one looked better because frankly I didn't like either one...). You can see that I moved her bed so it isn't up against the wall and then moved her dresser/armoire under the window:

This is taken from over by her window looking towards the door:

This is taken from the closet looking towards the built-in corner shelves. You can see that I moved the bookcase from where it was by the door (which is where the kitchen set is sitting now) and put the bookcase at the end of her bed (it is sitting where her dresser/armoire was before):

This is taken from in front of the corner shelves looking towards the closet. That little kitchen set used to be tucked under the corner shelves. I tried to get Lady Bug to let me sell it at the garage we are having soon but she refused. Her room is so small that all that stuff in there makes it feel more cramped. But I like the kitchen set where I have it now. It fits nicely and allows her to play with it easier.

I think overall I am very pleased with how the room came out! She really likes it too, but the first night she rolled out of bed. She told me the next morning how she is so used to having a wall there that she just rolled right out of bed "But mom, I laughed and didn't cry about it!"

UPDATED - Take a tour of my house - Lefty's Room

Last year I took you on a tour of my home, click here to look at Lefty's room last year.

This past weekend I spent the whole weekend deep cleaning my house and I re-arranged furniture in both Lefty and Lady Bug's rooms. It started out because I needed to move stuff and really vacuum and clean under/behind things. I decided their rooms could use a new look as long as I was moving stuff to vacuum under it.

Next week I will show you pictures of the updated Lady Bug's room.

Lefty's room tends to be the hottest room in the summer (and I don't really understand why) but by moving his bed under the window I am hoping to be able to pull in more cool air with the attic fan. We had a couple hot nights this weekend and so far this theory seems to be working.

Here is how it looks today (taken from the doorway):

Here is a view looking towards the closet (in the "before" pictures this is taken from where his bed was and now his desk is there):

These are taken from the closet looking towards the desk/bookcase/doorway (in the "before" pictures this is where his bed and bookcase were):

Take a tour of my house - Master Bedroom

I was somewhat holding off on showing this room because we are planning a tiny remodel of this room, but since we aren't financially ready to complete it I think I will showcase the room today and then do a before/after post later.

This is, of course, the room Mr. Man and I share. I love this room because it has 2 closets, one is bigger than the other. I have the smaller one, plus a dresser. Mr. Man has his larger closet (that has built in shelves), plus his bedside table.

The bed we have was Mr. Man's before we got married. The dresser I use was once Lady Bug's. The bench you see was made by Mr. Man for our wedding. The bedside table was mine before we got married. So nothing in here is a set and nothing matches.

This room does not have a "master bathroom", but we have a door off our room that leads to the main bathroom which is ok. Mr. Man and Spirit use the downstairs bathroom and the other two kids and I use the upstairs bathroom. It works out nicely for us.

When we moved in there were mint green curtains over the windows....ick. So we took those down and are adding some valances. Here is a picture of the curtains.

Here is what the room looks like today (messes and laundry piled up and all....I guess I could have cleaned up a little before I took the pictures. Oops.):


Other rooms in the house tour:
Living Room
Kitchen
Sunroom
Family Room
Laundry room/Bathroom
Spirit's Room
Lefty's Room
Lady Bug's Room

Take a tour of my house - Lady Bug's room

Lady Bug's room was pretty much ready to go when we moved in. It has wallpaper on one wall that I would eventually like to remove and paint the wall, but that will probably be another year or so before I get to that room. There are plenty of other rooms that need painted first!

Lady Bug is my all girl, pink-lovin, doll-lovin, book loving girl! She loves to read and loves to buy books at the store. After she brushes her teeth and goes potty at night I usually read a book or two to her and then she is allowed to read a few books to herself. I love to stand outside the door and listen to her make up the story as she goes along!

Here is a picture taken from the doorway to Lady Bug's very pink room

This picture is taken from the bed looking towards the door

This picture is taken from the closet area (which is at the end of her bed basically) looking towards her armoire. The corner shelves are built in and came with the house!

Other rooms in my house tour:

Living Room

Kitchen

Sunroom

Family Room

Laundry Room

Spirit's Room

Lefty's Room

Take a tour of my house - Spirit's room

This room is actually on the lower level but somehow in my haste to pre-post the last "home tour" pictures I somehow posted Lefty's room last week which is upstairs, instead of posting this one. Since I was on vacation, I didn't realize I had done that until yesterday...whoops!

So today we are back to the lower level to showcase Spirit's room.
When we moved into the home, I was not ready for any of the children to be on a different level than me. So we ended up making this room the playroom for almost a year. Then the boys just had way too different of personalities and they weren't able to share the upstairs bedroom anymore. Lefty is a very clean, organized kid, where Spirit is well, he is spirited and doesn't mind dirt and clutter. We were finding that Lefty would go in and do a thorough cleaning of their room and get really upset when Spirit didn't keep it clean. We finally decided it was time to separate them. Then we had to decide which boy would be moved downstairs. We ended up moving Spirit down there since he is the oldest.

This bedroom is on the lower level next to the laundry room/bathroom.

There is one whole wall that is a large closet with lots of built-in shelves that I just LOVE! The previous owners also built an L-shaped desk in there (which isn't my favorite thing and I would love to tear it out one day, but Spirit likes it!)

I will being showing you pictures of when it was a playroom and then what it looks like now as Spirit's room.


PLAYROOM:
The large TV in there isn't connected to cable, nor does it have it antenna so they can only watch movies (from the VCR/DVD player) or play video games on it.

Spirit is my book loving, video game loving, outdoor loving kid. He loves to lay in bed and read, but also takes every opportunity to be outdoors, riding his bike, roller blading or collecting bugs.

SPIRIT's ROOM:
We ended up leaving some of the toys in here. I took out all of Lady Bug's kitchen stuff and moved it to her room and most of Lefty's toys were taken to his room also. The Playstation is still in here and Spirit plays with it often and allows the other two to play whenever they want.


You can see in the above picture the wall of closet, they have mirrored doors (not my favorite!)

I absolutely hate the wall paneling too and that is on my list of things to remove and paint too!

This room is in need of some "character", and slowly we are adding stuff to make it more HIS room.

In case you missed some of the previous rooms I showcased in my home tour:
Living Room
Kitchen
Sunroom
Family Room
Laundry room / bathroom

Take a tour of my house - Lefty's room

I am starting this part of the tour with the stairs leading up to the master bedroom and also Lefty's and Lady Bug's rooms. I just love this hallway so I had to showcase it to you but didn't think it needed it's very own post!

So here is a picture taken from the stairs looking towards the end of the hallway


Now we will move to Lefty's room. He is my train loving, book loving, puzzle loving kid. Although he loves to be outside, he loves his train sets equally as much. He will lay in bed at night or write in his journal.

I've told you before he is a very clean and organized child, but these pictures were taken after we had company and the room was not as clean as it could be, but I needed to take pictures and didn't have time to wait for it to be clean!

This is taken from the doorway

This is taken from the bed looking at the closet

This one is taken from the closet looking at the bed

Take a tour of my house - Laundry room

The next room I am showing off probably should be left alone, but I am going to show it anyway.

We have a bathroom on the lower level that also houses my laundry room. I wasn't sure I would like the set up, but actually it works quite well. The bathroom is the one Mr. Man uses most often and recently the boys have decided they like to shower in there. This bath does not have a tub, just a shower.

This picture is taken from the family room area near the bottom of the stairs looking towards the bathroom.

This picture is taken from the bathroom/laundry room doorway. The white shelf unit sitting behind the toilet is one of my favorite things. It is actually meant to hang on the wall but the layout of the bathroom didn't really have a good spot for it. The mirror runs the length of that wall and that left one other little space, but it would have been cumbersome near the sink. So we had it sitting on the floor for several weeks and one day I was in there cleaning and realized the countertop behind the toilet would be the perfect spot for this shelf. It works great there!


This picture was taken from the other end of the bathroom, next to the shower. There is also a window on that wall which gives off nice light.



The below picture is taken from the sink area looking at the laundry set up. As you can see I didn't do any clean up before I took this picture, so please excuse the dirty clothes piled up!

The owners of the home built these nice shelves with great cupboards. I love that I can hide all my cleaning stuff and other junk in there. These shelves go right up to the ceiling so I can store a lot in there.




Close up of the cupboards!

In case you missed some of the other rooms in the tour:

Living Room

Kitchen

Sunroom

Family Room

Take a tour of my house - the Family Room

I believe our home is considered a tri-level home without a basement. So on the main level there is the living room, kitchen and our sunroom addition. Then from the kitchen you can go either up or downstairs. If you go down you will go to the family room, laundry room, a bathroom and the 4th bedroom. If you were to go upstairs from the kitchen you would find a bathroom and 3 bedrooms.

So here I will be showcasing the family room. This room had wallpaper on one wall when we moved in which is still on the walls...for now. I want to take it off and paint the wall someday. The wallpaper isn't horribly ugly, it just isn't my style.

This picture was taken just after we bought the house, but before we moved in. The items on the shelves were the sellers things.

BEFORE:


Now this picture was taken a little over a year after we moved in. It is taken from the top of the stairs by the kitchen nook.

I love this room for it's coziness. Especially in the winter when the fireplace is going. This is where we watch movies or where the boys will gather to watch football or car racing. I fell in love with the shelves when we were looking at the house, now that I own the house I can't seem to get the shelves "just right" so we are constantly moving stuff around on here!

AFTER:
This picture was taken standing by the TV area (which is across from the couch) looking back towards the stairs that lead back up to the kitchen nook. This is a very comfy recliner that came with the very comfy couch my sister-in-law gave us!


This picture was taken from standing behind the chair looking towards the bathroom/laundry and the 4th bedroom. There is a linen closet in between the bedroom and the bathroom, then to the right of that bathroom is another large closet that actually goes along under the stairs and the hot water heater in another "closet". Just under our kitchen nook is the crawl space that has tons and tons of room for storage also.