Celebrate with Color - a Girl's Bedroom Makeover begins.

The second winner of the Embellishments Kid's bedroom makeover is an interesting one. It's a demure, simple room waiting to come into its own. Its occupants are a lively, sweet cherub faced 2 1/2 year old and her doesn't miss a thing, girl power, cool 5 year old, big sister. Their room, which was recently moved into, lacks a personality befitting such charming and spirited girls. It's my goal to transform this understated room into one that celebrates their joyful and fun loving character.

The room is currently a pale...pale....pale, did I mention pale pink.

As you can see in the picture above, color is not the rooms strong point. It's paler than pale pink paint job creates a contrast issue for everything in the room. Either the black metal bed draws too much attention or the crib and white furnishing disappear into the colorless abyss. We need a color palette that brings together the rooms decor and furnishings. The room is a good sized room created from two intersecting square footprints. So there's plenty of room for two girls to share and yet have their own spaces.

This opposite view from the previous picture highlights how the room consists of two intersecting square footprints.

Now, there's a bonus challenge in redesigning this room. It's like a gameshow....what's behind door number 1, door number 2 or door number 3. Yes, there are 3 odd, off to wonderland, mismatched doors that lead to the attic crawl spaces. Can you spot them? One in the picture below, which is obvious because it's a big, bold, in your face, step up. The second, in the picture above, is hiding behind the toybox. Alice would need to indulge in the "Drink Me" secret sauce to enter for sure. The final one is concealed behind the side of the crib in the first picture. There are traditional ways of camouflaging these types of doors but I'm going to propose the opposite for at least one of them. I'm going to make it stand out, altering it's appearance so you no longer notice it's a door.

The attic access door adds a bit of "Winchester" styling to the room.

I've met with the lovely family and discussed my ideas. They are excited and ready for a paint party! I'll share with you some progress photos and details as the room develops during the month of October.

Also, Facebook friends of Embellishments will get sneak peaks of the progress prior to my posting here. Be sure to join me over on FB to view my renderings of the proposed makeover. www.Facebook.com/Embellishments

What do you think? Should our colors go brilliant, trendy, sweet or simple. How about style? Do we let the metal bed lead or dial it down letting the white furniture prevail?

Teen Bedroom Makeover- Goodbye Kid, hello Young Adult!

Back in July, I opened up a contest on our facebook page asking for submissions of kid's rooms for a makeover. Having a hard time deciding on just one, I chose three winners. The first of our three winner's, Nick has been anxiously awaiting the reveal of his new room. As a Birthday gift to him, yesterday we completed the room while he was at school. Now, I'm happy to share with you the finished project. We've taken Nick's room from a messy, eclectic one he's outgrown and turned it into a more modern, sleek, storage filled one with plenty of room for friends to hang out.

If you want to follow the progress of the makeover from the beginning, I've posted links to the project beginnings at the end of this post.

First, and most obvious from the original pictures of Nick's room, he needed storage. One of the leading causes of a messy room, other than age appropriate procrastination, is inadequate storage. To remedy the issue, I designed a wall storage niche, desk and headboard configuration which we built on site with the table saw artistry support of Nick's Dad. We then removed the legs from his 2 x 6 constructed bed and mounted it "floating" between the headboard and the walls. To dress it up we created a "weathered steel" facade which mounted over the face. The accent wall of red was highlighted with a custom 3D, backlit piece of art comprised of 5 dimensional letter "N's" of various typestyles. This was an abstract way to express Nick's various interests in science fiction, music, theater and acting.

Our secondary storage goal was to get his closet back into working order. The bypass doors had been removed by this parents to create an area for his TV, and AV equipment. In doing so it left his hang bar and other shelving open and exposed.

To return order to his chaos, we installed and finished out a new wall in the middle of the closet niche. This would serve as a divider between the two revamped areas. To the left, shelves were installed to hold his electronics. To the right a hang bar and shelving was reinstalled, restoring his closet into working order. We reinstalled one of the bypass doors with a facelift of blackboard paint and new trim.

To free up floor space and create seating opportunities we removed the roll top desk and replaced it with a revamped and restyled chair. The newly found space also gave room to display his guitar and a personalized piece of art we had Nick create. The art is a collage presentation of his goals, dreams and images to motivate and inspire him (see detailed photos at the end of this post).

Pictured below are details about the room including the custom roller shade and cornice.

This 10 x 9 foot room went from very crowded and underutilized to seemingly spacious and clutter free. It's personality reflects that of Nick, a young man with aspirations and confidence in who he is. It was a terrific project and I'm glad to have been of service. I'd like to thank Nick's parents for their faith in my ideas and their hands-on assistance during the project. The following images offer some details about the individual features of the room.

If you would like to see more of our custom bedrooms be sure to visit our website EmbellishmentsKids.com. Aaron Christensen's Embellishments is based in Portland, Oregon and is available for consultation/hire throughout the west coast. We also offer design packages created remotely with correspondence via internet and phone.

http://embellishmentskids.blogspot.com/2010/07/kids-bedroom-makeover-with-ryan.html
http://embellishmentskids.blogspot.com/2010/08/before-to-after-teens-bedroom-makeover.html

Teen Choice Awards - My Girl's Rock Art in a clip.

The ABC show Modern Family was nominated for the category of Choice TV Comedy on the 2010 Teen Choice Awards. The clip they used features my Girl's Rock Art in the background @ 1:35. Fun Stuff.