The "Princess" Room Photos

After much delay, I am finally posting the "after" photos of the girls' bedroom makeover. It was a hectic week when they returned...and then posting them got pushed to the back burner...and then the flu hit our house. I'm finally upright, so I thought I'd finally get this done! In case you missed the "before" photos, you can see them here.

How It Went Down: So, when Ella finally got home from her trip she was in a bit of a funk. Yeah, overseas travel and a time change can do that to a 4-year old. I decided not to reveal the room until she got into a better mood which happened about an hour later. Ella noticed a lovely little pot of purple flowers that my parents had given me for Easter. She got very excited about them and asked if she could put them on the windowsill in her room. I quickly grabbed the camera and went into her room via the bathroom door entrance so she couldn't see in and then started videoing the reveal. Ella was quite surprised and happy!

Here is Ella's improved bed! I bought a pink comforter, made silky pillow shams and added several throw pillows. I also bought a matching comforter for Lucie when she makes the eventual transition from crib to bed. When Ella saw the bed she exclaimed, "Now I have a princess room like Emma!" Emma is a girl at her school...who strangely enough does NOT have a princess room - I asked her mom. I guess Emma has plans though... Anyway, Ella really liked the silk veil canopy that I created. I think I might add a few more flowers to it when I get a spare moment. I also ran out of time to make a bedskirt so hopefully I'll get around to that at some point.

The big change here was the window coverings. I bought fun beaded curtain rod and holdbacks for the new pink gingham blackout curtains. Because there are only two panels of curtains, more of the window is exposed when they are pulled back and makes the room feel a lot larger. The added bonus is that the room is much darker during naptime and at night because of the blackout material. And of course, Ella loved them because they are pink.

Since Lucie will probably move to a "big kid" bed in the next 6 months or so, I didn't want to buy any new crib bedding. I managed to find a pink crib skirt on clearance for $4 and made do with yellow sheets and various blankets that we already had.

The tree wall art is pretty cool - it has a low-tack adhesive so it can be removed easily. The one drawback is that we've got textured walls so it isn't sticking as well as I hoped it would. But, it works...and looks pretty cute too.

My sister Jamie rearranged the items on the shelf above the dresser - she always makes things look better than I can. I also got inspired by Fancy Nancy to pound a couple of nails in the wall and hang up Ella's pink feather boa above her full-length mirror that is right in front of the door.

This sweet little rocking chair was mine when I was a little girl. Jamie made this cute little chair pad with some of the fabric that we bought for throw pillows.

I found this fancy little lamp online and thought that Ella would love it because of the beads and the pull-chain. However, the thing she really loved was the silver jewelry box. I got it as a Christmas gift from Jamie about 9 years ago and haven't used it since my hubby bought me a larger one for an anniversary. Ella adores it.

The one other change that I made that you can't see in the photos is that I took down the hanging lamp and replaced it with a silver standing torchiere that we had it my room. The difference is rather dramatic. The lighting is so much better in there!

I do have a precious video of the actual reveal that I would like to post. However, it is 114 MB so I need to figure out how to reduce the size before I attempt to upload it. So perhaps one day I'll get around to that.