{31 Days to a Brand New Room} Day 1: The Plan

It's October again -- time for another 31-day series!!  Last year I celebrated my love of all things crafty.  This year I decided to go back to my interior designer roots and show you how I approach making over a room, completely DIM {do-it-myself}on a T.I.G.H.T budget.  Every day this month I'll be sharing each step in the process -- from the planning and organizing through the sewing and crafting of the finishing touches and everything in between.  You can find a complete List of projects here.  I hope you'll join me for the long haul!!

Let me introduce you to my "client" for this project:  my daughter, Sydney.

She's 14 years old and just started high school this fall.  Sis, as we call her, sings, plays the flute, and is teaching herself to play guitar.  She's chock-full of personality -- a little spicy, but mostly sweet -- and wants a room to match.  When we last decorated her room she was in 4th grade.  It was all pink, brown, and girly-girl cuteness.  Here's what it looked like then:

Man, that's a bad picture!  I would show you a more recent picture, but I am too embarrassed.  Imagine that picture above, without the bed made and clothes, magazines, and other junk piled knee-deep.  Then imagine you went away for the weekend and your stereotypical errant teen threw a giant party in there and trashed the place.  Then imagine a tornado hit that room.  That would be a delightfully refreshing alternative to what lurks behind my daughter's door.

Holy moly.  There are no words . . .   Never mind the teenager mess, the room just doesn't suit her anymore.  It's too "little girl"y and there's too much shelving. How is that a problem?  In this case, for this kid, the two large bookcases give the illusion of order, but are really just an invitation for clutter.  The closet is not well organized either, which is a recipe for disaster in a teen girl's room.  Add to that some questionable design choices on my part {the brown painted floor and brown shag rug --what was I thinking?!} and you've got a room in need of a makeover. 

So, I bet you are dying for me to get to the point and show you the plan, right?  Here's a design board I threw together really quickly to give Sis {and y'all} an idea of what I have in mind:

The Basics:

 Before we do anything in the room, we'll be deep cleaning and de-junking the space.  I'll also be reworking the closet organization so that it works better for Sis and we can get those cluttered bookcases out of there. THEN we'll be putting in a vinyl plank floor that looks just like wood and painting 3 of the walls with navy blue custom chalkboard paint.  The fourth wall will have a cool faux plank treatment and a coat of satin white paint to bounce a little light back into the room and keep it from being dark.  She'll be getting a new light fixture to replace the too-precious chandelier and I'll also be making some window treatments with wide horizontal stripes.

The Extras:

I'll be using the builder's grade mirror I took out of my kids' bathroom this summer to make a giant floor mirror which will bring even more light into the space and we'll be sewing up our own version of that beautiful $300 ruffly Anthropologie bedspread and shams you see in the picture up there.  We'll paint a graphic rug for the floor and whip up some funky throw pillows.  She'll get a chair and footstool for reading/homework and some cool, mom-made inspirational art for her walls.

What have I gotten myself into?  I'll be honest, I'm a little exhausted already.  Intensely hard work is the name of the game when you're decorating on a super-strict budget, though.  And it's ALWAYS worth it in the end. Trust me. 

Thanks for stopping by today! Join us tomorrow as we talk about space planning and furniture arrangement.