A DIY Girl’s Bedroom Makeover (On a Budget!)
My girls had a shared bedroom that we never did a whole lot with. When we first moved in, there were so many rooms we needed to tackle first that we just tossed a couple of mattresses on the floor with their toys and called it done.
For a couple of years, they were fine with that.
But as the rest of the house started to come together the girls (justifiably) wanted something with a bit more personality. And beds 🙂
In this post, I’m going to share our entire girls' bedroom makeover from start to finish. This room is chock full of DIYs and fun design ideas for tweens sharing a room.
The Girls’ Bedroom: Before
This should be quick because where we started was literally a white box with mattresses on the floor and a couple of cheap toy bins.
And an underused, builder-basic closet. Two sets of these laminate cubes were stacked in here to store all of their clothes. We didn’t use the wire shelf for anything but junk.
The functional goals for the room included an improved layout since my girls share the room and it’s not particularly large. Also, to make it cozy and conducive to sleep. The holy grail of parenthood.
As far as visual inspiration we were aiming for a secret garden at night. This is a kid’s room after all so it needed an element of fun and magic. Sure, it’s cool if I like it but what matters is that THEY like it.
The Girls’ Bedroom: During
This was a radical bedroom makeover complete with tons of DIYs.
We added actual beds and reconfigured the layout:
The white walls were painted a rich midnight blue, complete with matching ceiling and glowing stars:
I transformed the boring white laminate cubes by decoupaging them with grocery bags:
I made pendant lights out of string and some glue:
I painted the closet pink in preparation for turning it into a reading nook:
But first I needed to build a floating bench:
I created faux neon signs out of wire:
I made some giant paper flowers and turned some into lanterns:
And finally we shopped for the best possible deals to decorate the rest of the girls’ bedroom:
The Girls’ Bedroom: After
We nailed it across the board, put the “fun” into function, and now I can barely get them to leave the room.
The paper flower wall and the reading nook
First, let’s take a look at that paper flower feature wall. The original plan was to at least double the number of flowers on this wall, but we decided that this was just the right amount:
This is probably my favorite one. It actually doubles as a light (a lantern?). There are two light-up flowers and they add just the right touch of whimsy and magic. It’s a really fun feature that the girls can control by remote from their beds.
Easily the largest transformation in the room is the closet turned reading nook.
The reading nook turned out better than I ever imagined it! And it’s reaaaalllly hard to shoot properly without the right camera lens and pro lighting. I did my best:
The lighting features are positively magical at night when they glow through those walls of faux fern. Josie actually sleeps in here sometimes.
Here’s the full post on turning a closet into a reading nook.
The beds, the walls, and more lights
Those deep, dark midnight walls. They were a bit controversial at first, but now that everything else is in? They make so much sense. I love how the whites pop so crisply off the navy black.
We also used lots of gold to add more of that magic and sparkle. These lamps? We made them for under $10 each.
The aim was to make them almost look like a beehive or nest of some sort dipped in gold to tie in with the garden theme.
So important to mention though — this hanging spot is NOT appropriate for very young kids due to the strangulation hazard. My kids are at the age of reason and we had a conversation about not ever playing around with the lamps.
The glow up
What’s a night-themed kids’ bedroom without some glow in the dark elements? I painted an entire glowing galaxy of stars on the ceiling. You can see bits of it in the first photo and in a few others, but it has sadly proved to be impossible to shoot glowing in the dark.
I did however manage to capture these faux neon signs we made:
The details
Here are some final details I wanted to be sure to call out!
Annabelle filled little bowls around the room with crystals to give them “sweet dreams, bravery, and positive energy”:
Josie’s concept from the get-go included adding these butterflies all around the room as if they’d just happened to land there. It was a brilliant idea:
I FINALLY found a tiny settee in the kid’s section of my local HomeGoods. It was a little more than I wanted to spend but was still a great deal and fits perfectly. We’re planning to add some patterned fabric to the seat down the road.
Literally all of the lights in this room are powered by remote so we needed a pretty tray to hold them all. Pray that we never lose them!
I potato printed a scrap of fabric and turned it into this sweet little no-sew pillow.
I ended up covering the backs of the storage cubes with sheet moss glued to presentation boards from the dollar store. It’s all about the little details 🙂
And that about wraps it up! Interested in seeing our master bedroom makeover? Check that out here.
Resources for this project:
See all materials
Comments
Join the conversation
-
I’m a little girl and I love it I think you did really good job and I love it and really want to have that when I get older. it’s so pretty and I I think that your kids love it and it’s really beautiful Alaina❤️😁
-
Oh wow, Alaina, you made my day!! I'm so happy you like the room, and my girls also wanted to say hi and thank you ♥️
-
-
The above response is from my six year old granddaughter!!!! I showed her the room and now I’m going to make her a reading nook in my closet!!!
Thanks for the inspiration 👏👏
-
Thank you so much for sharing your granddaughter's thoughts -- best compliment I've ever received online ♥️
I'd love to see how your reading nook comes out!
-
Frequently asked questions
Have a question about this project?
Did you paint the rope names with glow-in-the-dark paint to make them into the faux neon signs?
Where do you get the giant flowers with lights?
Where did you get the giant flowers with lights?