Tomboy to teen dream: how to decorate so your kid won't outgrow her room

I recently did some boards for a seven year old self-proclaimed tomboy.  She had been sharing her room with various siblings most of her life, and she was getting a room of her own for the first time.

When I first saw the space set up for her, she had star wars sheets and posters.  Her furniture was odds and ends from other rooms.  She wanted green walls.

Mom wanted to give her new pieces (her sister just got this makeover.)  Right now she wants "boy stuff" but in a few short years, she will be a tween.  (It's crazy how time flies!)  She may hold on to her tomboy ways for ever, but she may find herself drawn to girlier things.  So, how do you decorate for her wants now and plan for the future without replacing everything?

A neutral base.

Here's the room we decided on:

The bigger, more expensive items (rug, furniture, window treatments) are all in the same gender-neutral palette: white, navy, and a sort of greige on the headboard.  The bedding, lamp, desk chair, and paint color satisfy her taste today. (She can also keep the star wars sheets in this design!)

Later, those same items can be changed out to a more feminine (and more grown up) vibe.

I went pink, because it is (for better or for worse) classic "girl," and because I happen to love pink and navy together.  But lavender, yellow, coral, aqua, or chartreuse could all be employed to similar effect.

Paint and bedding have a lifespan anyway, and could use refreshers after 4 or 5 years (and I reused the quilt, which gets less skin contact and gets washed less frequently.)  I added a mirror over the dresser and a pinboard, which reflect changes in how a girl might use her room.  The upholstered, swivel, rolling desk chair is more comfortable for an older adolescent who may have more homework.  So when it comes down to it, these are changes that would happen for practical reasons anyway.  I guess the big luxury is changing out the lamp!

There are tons of great options out there these days that can work for both genders.  Big retailers like PBTeen and Land of Nod unfortunately separate everything into "girls rooms" and "boys rooms," but don't be afraid to cross over!  You may find the perfect rug or quilt (etc) for your girl in the "boy" category.

Sneak peek: some (impatient) before and afters

When rooms unfold slowly, I have this bad habit of sharing before and afters before we're really done (or photographed properly).  A habit I am about to indulge.

These are some pretty ghastly before shots:

Both rooms has 80s wallpaper along with bad mauve carpeting and golden oak trim.  The trim we left alone for now (trim is such a huge project because it is everywhere!), and while the carpet will be replaced eventually, we did tear down the wallpaper, stat.

These kids are currently two and four, so the beds are on the floor.

In Lael's room, we painted the walls a pale mint green and brought in happy prints and patterns that aren't too princessy sweet.  (This was the original inspiration.  Turned out the inspiration headboard didn't come in a Queen, so we rethought, here.  That's pretty much exactly what we ended up with!)

Love the watercolors by Lael (top) and her brother (bottom).

In Oliver's room, we lightened up with a blue-grey paint and offset the wood pieces with navy, green, and a car-themed art wall.

The abstract paintings are by Oliver, too.

Oli's room is pretty much complete, but Lael's still needs book shelves, a chair, and possibly a dresser makeover.  We're getting there.

It will be fun to share a full reveal (you know, including the other sides of these rooms), sometime this summer.

For now, hope you like the transformation!

Scandinavian style for a 6 year old

Especially loving the unusual combo of red, yellow, and mint, and the strong graphics of the black and white.

Cute, no?

Teensy Nursery

The family with this boys room and this girls room has an unexpected guest coming their way: baby number three, due in September!  Eventually two of the kids will share the map room, but for now, they're turning a small office in to the nursery.

The room is maybe 6x9 feet, teeny indeed, with a weird niche that is too small for a crib.  Taking inspiration from all the recent crib-in-the-closet design, we're talking about building a custom platform and storage right in to the niche, in lieu of a traditional crib.

Here's some inspiration.

via apartment therapy

Love the drawers below and shelf above; we would just add a rail of some kind to the front for now, leaving a little reading nook later

One Little Minute Blog

There's a simple example of a rail.  And space for baskets below may be easier than drawers.  Stripes are cute, too, but I love the solid color of this next one.

via Daddy Types

If you really wanted to get creative, you could create cutouts for crawl spaces (for a toddler)

Or build a playhouse underneath

Or keep it simple, and build a curved rail instead of a slatted one.

via Oh Happy Day

What do you think: would you put the baby in the closet?

I think this is such a smart solution to open up a small room!

Small Measures

I have a new client, a 6-year-old boy with severe allergies.  No draperies, no upholstery, and no rugs means coming up with other places to bring in pattern, texture, and FUN.

For additional DIY window shade projects, go here!

Big Boy room (that goes both ways)

Remember Oliver's nursery?

Well, he's moving on out to make way for a baby sister.

In his new, big boy room, his mom wants a color palette of navy, aqua, and chartreuse.
Dad wants to keep the wall of large, framed black and white vintage sports photography (the space is currently his office.)
And of course, it would be an added bonus if the space could work for a girl down the line.

This rug from PBTeen kind of did the work for me, don't you think?
Pale chartreuse walls and warm wood keep it from going too cool--or too girly.

(You may also notice I used a side table from my recent round up.  These things are making my own budget sourcing MUCH easier--until tables start to be discontinued, that is.)

Of course, I sent them two other choices--one a bit more "boy" and one quite a bit younger--so we'll see where things end up!

We welcome Lucy Faye with some girls' room goodness

Yesterday, my best friend in New York (the maid of honor at my wedding) welcomed baby number two into the world: Lucy Faye.  Marni is also in the midst of a major renovation, and I will soon have the honor of designing rooms for Lucy and big brother Daniel.  For months now, I have been resisting the call of little-girl fabrics because, well, we didn't know whether a girl or boy was on the way.  Now I can go wild.

Before I officially dive in, some inspiration to get Mommy thinking.  (Because that is what a mom to a brand new baby is thinking about: the nursery design.  Right?)

Source: spearmintbaby.com via Heather on Pinterest

Source: materialgirlsblog.com via Heather on Pinterest

Source: housetohome.co.uk via Heather on Pinterest

Source: housetohome.co.uk via Heather on Pinterest

Source: estateeclectic.blogspot.com via Heather on Pinterest

Can't wait to dig in!

I have three other girls' rooms in the works, and I have to say, I think they are the most fun.

Congratulations, Marni, Matt and Daniel, and welcome Lucy!

Pinterest Challenge: Magnetic Hallway reveal

Well, the upstairs hallway is done.  For now.

There were a few hurdles in this project, I'm not gonna lie.  And it ended up being not super cheap, either.  Tomorrow I'll post my tips (and a few complaints) on using magnetic paint, but for now, let's just say that this:

plus this:

Took this:

To this:

With the added bonus of this:

Night time pictures.  That's what happens when you finish your project round about midnight!

Details, tomorrow.

In the meantime, you can head on over to Young House Love to see the 600 or so projects that people have linked up (actually, I just checked.  I'm 686).  And of course, see the projects of the challenge originators (just "challengers", I guess?) here, here, and here.

Reader Design Dilemma: Combining paints and stains in a boys' room

Amy writes to me with a problem that I think is common these days.

In her boys' room, she has second hand dressers and beds.  They all have great lines, but she wonders what she should paint and what she should sand down and re-stain.  With all the DIY up-cycle action going on out there, I think lots of us can relate.  I think there's a thing that happens when too many items in a room have been messed with.  Some kind of DIYitis.  It's all about knowing when to stop.

A couple of decisions have already been made for the small room, which helps to limit the seemingly endless possibilities when it comes to customizing your pieces.  Amy has this adorable red and white animal silhouette bedding from Ikea (I love that it's reversible so the two boys can have a same-but-different look).  She has also promised her 4 year old that the accent wall will be painted orange.

The closet doors can't function properly with the bed placement, so they need to be left bare or replaced with curtains.  Since it's the first thing you see when you enter the room (the image below is hsot from the doorway), curtains are the way to go.

And finally, Amy's husband does not want to paint the bed frames white.

With two bold colors already in the plan, the goal is to work out a room that can stand up to the highly saturated colors and bold shapes, without, as Amy says, looking like a circus.

While the options are nearly endless, I like three directions.

1.  Bold and Sharp
A healthy dose of crisp black and white stands up to the red and orange.


Painting the bed frames a semi-gloss black makes them stand out against the orange wall (bonus: use spray paint), while painting the dresser orange brings that bold tone to the other side of the room.  Mostly white curtains give some relief against the accent wall, and horizontal striped curtains on the closet carry the bold scheme to an otherwise all white wall.  Soft baskets to corral stuffed animals add a needed organic touch while repeating the black and white scheme, and the alphabet art brings just a touch of red and a tonal grey to the walls.  With this scheme, I love the idea of painting the inside of the door with chalkboard paint.

2. Build a natural base
Stripping and staining the beds and the dressers in one cohesive tone makes warm wood a major feature in the room. With wood as the base, there's more space to play with a mix of colors and pattern, and adding navy to the orange and red mix feels classic.


I like the mix of three different navy and white patterns--the stripe curtains for the closet, gingham or buffalo check at the windows, and stars on the lampshade--to keep it from looking too matched, and the art carries the red from the bedding to the walls.  The art, like the bedding, is all about line and silhouette, but this is balanced by the natural elements, including the organic weave of a nice big basket for toy storage.  That shiny orange lamp brings our accent wall color across the room.

3. Go tone-on-tone around the room
In such a small room, it's no surprise that Amy doesn't want to paint all of the walls orange.  But a consistent paint treatment around the room can make a space feel larger.  By using a softer neutral two thirds of the way up the wall and topping it off with orange, Dakota gets his bold color but the room doesn't go into overdrive.  I would not use molding here--just tape precisely and the effect is much more modern and streamlined.


In this case I would use either grey, as shown, or a green on the olive to khaki spectrum, and paint the beds one tone darker than the walls for a tone-on-tone effect.  Then the key is to keep it streamlined, with wide-striped panels in the same neutral base plus white on both the windows and the closet door.  Bring the orange back on the dresser for a color-block effect, and add roller crate storage for a natural, rustic touch.  (Added bonus: the crates can slip under the beds when not in use.)  With the color block being the main motif, the art needs to be softer and more realistic than in the other looks.  A black and white portrait of each of the boys above his bed, framed in red (or wood), is just the right touch, and a wall sconce from ikea over the dresser has an organic feel, like tentacles, breaking up all the blocks.

One more thing.

Dina over at Honey and Fitz recently rounded up some of the best dresser transformations around the web.  How amazing is this ship cutout?




Did I mention that our reader Amy is an artist?  Well, she is.  I wouldn't recommend this for just anyone, but I know Amy could pull off a dresser transformation along these line, and the room is so small, each piece could be considered a statement.  She would choose a motif meaningful to her family, but this gives you the sense of it.



What do you think:  Do you have a favorite?

Amy has her work cut out for her, but hopefully this helps her pull together a vision to work towards.  I had so much fun putting this together!

Do you have a design dilemma that I can help with?  Email me at heather{at}heatherpetersondesign{dot}com

Mixed-Gender Kids rooms

Okay, it's official: I'm insane.

I started making room boards for the whole mixed-gender kids room reader dilemma, and I kind of couldn't stop--there are just so many great things out there for the little ones! I was going to just choose one or two boards and go on pretending that I am a normal person, but if you've been reading this blog you already know about my sickness, so who cares, right?

I didn't list sources here--too many--but if you hop on over to polyvore by following the links, you can see where everything comes from. And some of you will faint because of the prices, so before you get your knickers in a twist, let me just say that a lot of that is just for looks. I would never spend $1,000 a piece of twin beds from Anthropologie; I would find a pair on craigslist and paint them to LOOK like I spent $1,000 a piece at Anthropologie. Although, I will admit, I could not DIY that rocking sheep way down at the bottom, and I challenge any and all of you to find the knock off and send it to copycat chic.

Let's see. I think these kind of go from youngest to oldest--the last one is for some dark and twisty tweens.

Primary colors plus his and hers sheets:

Mixed-gender kids room by heatherjoypeterson on Polyvore.com

Sunshiny Day:

mixed-gender kids room, green and yellow and orange by heatherjoypeterson on Polyvore.com

Preppy safari:

mixed-gender kids room by heatherjoypeterson on Polyvore.com

Graphic shapes plus a little bit of nature:

Mixed-gender kids room, blue and orange by heatherjoypeterson on Polyvore.com

And, the dark and twisty tweens:

mixed gender tween room by heatherjoypeterson on Polyvore.com

What's your favorite? I keep changing my mind.

Also, turns out this is my one hundredth post. That was fast. And also, hooray!

Reader Design Dilemma: Mixed-Gender kids room

Reader Rebecca has a wonderful mid-century house with three bedrooms, one for herself and her husband, one for their 2-year-old son, Rudy, and one for their almost 5-year-old daughter, Scarlett. Well, guess what? Rebecca is pregnant! With a girl! And she's not sure whether she'll keep things along gender lines and put the baby in with Scarlett, or go more for age and put the big kids together. Hence, the design dilemma: How do you create a shared room for a boy and a girl that is cute as can be and satisfies the needs of both? Her one requirement is no bunk beds because, as she put it, who wants to climb a ladder to change the sheets?

I immediately thought of my favorite-ever shared kids room, in the house of actor Mark Ruffalo (who happens to make me weak in the knees, but his wife seems pretty awesome, so I guess that all works out.) I dug it out of the pile of Domino magazines and scanned the best images to share, but we'll get to that later because it kind of combines a number of strategies, which I'll go ahead and break down here.

I think the easiest way to go is to simply choose a gender-neutral palette. I love green and yellow, yellow and orange, orange and khaki, or pale blue and red.

[Amanda Nisbet, via High Street Market]

[via Domino]

[via Domino]

[via Domino]

Next, I would choose a gender-neutral shape to the headboards (think squared off rather than curvy), either upholstered or wood, and other goes-both-ways pieces, like the clean-lined dresser, above, or this wardrobe in actress Ione Skye's house (I guess the stars really know how to decorate kids rooms). Also love the crisp red and natural palette here.

[via Domino]

To inject a little of each child's personality, I like the idea of personalized pairs, like the coordinated but not matching sheets on these awesome orange bunk beds.

[Domino, again]

(I know: no bunks allowed. But you could paint a pair of second hand beds orange--or another bold color-- and mix up the sheets.) You could also do a pair of neutral headboards, like white or a natural linen, and personalize them with each child's monogram, or drape each with a different blanket. In this case, I might choose a pattern with a reverse, like blue with red polka dots on one bed and red with blue polka dots on the other.


If your architecture allows, you could delineate separate areas, one for each child, with paint.

[I found this on a blog and now cannot find it! I'm usually really good with sources, so my apologies here.]

But I'm guessing that this only applies to a small handful of people, so back to the Ruffalo's.

They do it all in this room. Gender neutral palette, mixed sheets on matching beds, delineating areas with different colors, and, taking it up a notch, throwing in pairs matched by shape but mixed by color.



Case in point: the adorable Jenny Lind style spindle beds, each with sheets of their own personality. Also, the african hoop style chairs (which I lust after, and blogged about here) in two different color combos. Then there's the pink rug on the "Girl" side, which artfully divides the space while still, somehow, maintaining a cohesive look. (warning: there's also a more masculine grey-striped rug under the beds, and not everyone could pull off the mixed-rug situation!)

Everything else in the room is totally gender neutral, from the white bean bag to the light-wood shelves, making them the perfect backdrop for all of the kids stuff which, when openly but artfully displayed, throws a whole lot of boy and girl personality into the room.

So I guess that's my best advice: copy Mark Ruffalo's wife.

I'll be back tomorrow with a couple of design boards to put these strategies into action.