By mommie2zs in Buds — Apr 13, 2018

Monkey's Bedroom Makeover

As our Christmas present for the eldest, we told her we would orchestrate a bedroom makeover.

Her room and closet had ended up being the storage spot for assorted furniture, extra paintings, and that creaky desk chair that acted like it would tip you out whenever it chose.

With her love of DIY home makeover shows in mind, she chose to have the bedroom makeover be a surprise, with a few parameters for us to keep in mind. She wanted a comfortable, cozy space that felt peaceful, while showing that the person who owned the room loved the ocean and certain video games.

When Monkey headed off to spend some time with my mom, the remodel crew kicked into gear.

We began by clearing out and packing up all the Monkey items that had been sitting around. We moved the mattresses off the bunkbed and gave Buster and Yessa extra height on their beds. The pictures all came down and the shelves were all cleared off.

The wall above is a classic example of “parent-inspired” decorating that the child outgrows. Buds and I adored this wall of Monkey photos. So many memories flooded back whenever we looked at each picture. We hung all these pictures when we moved into this house, patted ourselves on the back for getting them into some semblance of a design, brushed the dust off our hands and walked away.

Monkey, on the other had grown tired of having her face at every age staring back at her whenever she walked to her closet. She was kind about it, but indicated clearly that she would be glad to have that decorative choice gone.

Monkey had been sleeping in a queen-sized bed for months now, but the bunk beds were still in her room. Just moving the bunks out made a huge difference in the feeling of the space.

We recorded each step so we can put it back together someday.

Takes a team to destroy an IKEA bunkbed.

The above shelf was repurposed to my side of our bed so I could see my books more easily.

Dear Teresa jumped in to help with design ideas and she and Yessa handled the non-IKEA shopping.

It must be messier before it gets better.

The Princess and The Pea game was great fun.

Teresa gave us the paint for the accent wall, and she and Yessa selected the paint color for all the other walls and delivered that. Once we had the vision, we got down to the real fun part.

The other three walls looking much lighter.

Looking cleaner and brighter, still messy.

In the midst of all this Buds headed to Atlanta for a work trip, and dragged two co-workers along on a sacrificial trip to Ikea while they were there. The plan was to get items for the basement and the furniture for Monkey’s room. Buds was sending Monkey photos and chatting with her via Slack to get her opinion on different chairs and patterns.

Thanks to Buddie’s co-worker also being willing to haul home half the Ikea stash in his car, Buds got everything we needed to complete Monkey’s room.

The day Kel, Paula, and the girls were to arrive, Teresa came over to help with the final hanging of wall art.

The timing was perfect because we had furniture that had never been touched by cat butt that Kel could sit on safely, while Kel and Paula had a beautiful, clean bedroom to sleep in.

After those beloveds left, Monkey and Mom flew down the day after, so we had one final day to put together the desk for Monkey’s room. We left the desk in a box under the bed so visitors would have more space for their items.

Remember this pile of stuff? It had to go somewhere.

We had a hilarious time putting the desk together. Buds had been so inspired to workout with Kel here, he had over-worked his arms and couldn’t bend them for several days. (Video of this debacle in an upcoming post.)