A Big Girl Room for our Big Girl

I started thinking about what I wanted Charlotte's big girl room to look like back in the fall.  We knew we were, hopefully, about to have another child and I was over the pink nursery and ready to get Charlotte into a room that more fit her personality.  I had in my mind an idea of a room that was sort of the distressed, refined, casual look that we went with in our bedroom only on a little girl scale.  I was leaning towards purple because I love light purple's and Charlotte wasn't particularly drawn to pink or any other colors and liked purple a lot.

So I was on the lookout for items that struck me as "perfect" for this room that I had in my head.  While Kelly and I were at Mistletoe Marketplace in November I found the first item that I thought would be perfect.  A beautiful painting by Prayers on the Side entitled "A Time to Dance" that had the perfect mix of purple, pink, gray, and turquoise that I just loved.  Thankfully, I tipped Santa off and he came through with the painting for Charlotte for Christmas!

Once we knew the painting was a definite it solidified the purple choice in my mind and we set off to pick the perfect shade of purple.  If you've picked out paint colors you know what a pain this can be because the colors definitely don't look like the paint chip when they get on the wall!  Jason was a trooper and painted three different swatches for me and from that we picked out Benjamin Moore 1411 North Cascades.  We painted her ceiling and bathroom Benjamin Moore HC-83 Grant Beige which is much grayer in person and what we used on our walls in our bedroom.

The search then began for furniture.  We decided to use the headboard from her crib (which is a dark espresso) since it turns into a double bed headboard but we also knew that we wanted some distressed pieces that were lighter to balance out the dark wood.  I also had envisioned this long, open bookcase in my mind that turned out to be the hardest piece in the world to find!  We ended up mixing furniture so that the room is pretty balanced half and half with dark and light pieces (or at least it will be once her desk replaces her crib which is currently on one wall).

And the bedding turned into a bigger ordeal than I was expecting also.  It's surprisingly hard to find bedding that has purple in it that is not little girly and is something that I think she'll be able to keep for at least a few years.  And since I didn't really want a lot of pink in the room that narrowed our choices down even more.  I ended up getting a lady who helped my Mom in the past help me pick out bedding and curtains.  We found the Lindsey Lattice Duvet Cover at PB Kids that we liked and so decided to go with that and make the accessories (pillows, drapes, bedskirt) from the coordinating sheets.  I never would have thought to do that but I love the way that it turned out!  I think it looks so fresh and clean and much more girl-ish than toddler-ish.

We also balanced out the toddler-ness with a beautiful gray slipper chair that I found in a store in town and had a custom ledge built made to resemble this one from PB.  (If you ever need someone in town to make you something I definitely have the people for you because they ordered and stained the bookcase for Charlotte's room, HAND MADE and stained/painted the ledge for us, delivered and installed it all for a fraction of what we could have gotten it for anywhere else!  I'd love to recommend them to you so let me know if you're in the market for someone!)  I also added some more grown up accessories like the Dress Frame Jewelry Holder from PB Teen and some antique mirrored trays.

That's a lot of talk just leading up to the pictures so, without further ado, Charlotte's big girl room!

From the door coming in

Bow holder that I made that's on the inside of one of her closet doors.  Tutorial on how to make coming soon!

Cardboard initials that I covered in leftover fabric.  (These were much more tedious than I had planned but I like the way that they look!)

Close up of bedding.

Lamps are from Hobby Lobby and have acrylic bases instead of glass so they won't break in case a rambunctious toddler knocks them over.  The shades are the perfect gray color with velvet details so they match perfectly!

And the houses above the bed were a find in Mom and Dad's upstairs closet that I just happened to remember from our old house when I was trying to find something for above the bed.  I think they are one of the most perfect things that I could have found to go there!

Stained bookshelf and stained and then painted and distressed ledge.

Pretty much all the photos and definitely all of the canvases are by Erin Cobb.

I love that I got to use some things from Charlotte's nursery in her room and also some things from when I was growing up!  Can you see the painting of the flowerpot on top of the bookcase in the middle?  My parents brought that home from Pebble Beach for me when I was probably in 5th or 6th grade and I painted the frame that it's in to match my room then -- purple, pink, and green!

The Prayers on the Side painting and slipper chair.  This is where we do our nightly praying and singing now that we've graduated from the rocker in the nursery.

The view from the bathroom door.  You can still see baby touches in the edge of the crib and the diaper genie but we're pretty much in solid big girl territory now!

Thankfully the transition to the big girl room wasn't hard.  She loved her purple room from the second it got painted and as more and more got added to the room she loved it even more.  She was perfectly fine when one Saturday morning Jason started taking her crib apart in the nursery and moved it to her new room.  She hasn't had a problem with it at all and even calls her old room "Baby James' room" now.  (I am knocking on wood just in case you're wondering.)  Hopefully she'll still be as understanding about sharing her upstairs space with a little brother, but so far things have been good and Charlotte loves her big girl purple room!