I’m kicking off my ninth time participating in the One Room Challenge with our biggest kids’ bedroom! The layout is staying the exact same but I’m bringing in some new textures and bold colours. This season’s challenge is another 8 weeks (compared to the usual 6), but I’ll try to finish the space as quick as possible. Ready to see the current photos and plans for our shared kids’ room?!
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Do we need a new project? Probably not, we’re finishing up the tail end of the kitchen and are starting the cottage build too. But I was planning on doing the kids’ shared room for the Spring One Room Challenge. Anddd I’ve been telling them about their “new room” for months, so now’s the time! Besides, this room should be pretty straightforward since it’s almost a carbon copy of our main bedroom (my project last year).
About the Shared Kids’ Room
Our almost 5-year-old-boy and just-turned-3-year-old-girl share a room, and it’s time to renovate it. We’ve been in this house just over a year, and have been updating the rooms one-by-one. Even though we plopped in most of the furniture we had from our last house, this room has still gone through a lot of changes.
When we first moved in our stuff in, Élise, our middle lady, was still in a crib. The photos above show her and Félix, our littlest (who has his own room, ha). The older two were used to sharing a room (and Félix was still feeding in the night).
We had gotten her a “big girl bed” early this year, but she still preferred the crib. At one point, there were three beds in this room – so it was super tight.
As in, you’d bump into the crib as soon as you walked in the door. She finally transitioned to her big bed (after we took out the crib and forced her) about a month ago.
You know those shared kids’ rooms that have two twin beds on the same wall? I love those! BUT our room is too small for that layout and this is what we have to work with. (If they were both on the window wall, the one bed would come almost right up to the door). We took the closet doors down and moved Zachary’s bed in there a while back.
One thing I do want to address is their window. All of the windows in this house get a lot of condensation, but this one also has mold (yuck!). The drywall is also visible on the bottom half of the casing (but not the top), so I have no idea what I’ll do there.
Either way, let’s look at the design direction and moodboard!
The Shared Kids’ Room Moodboard
Zachary’s favourite colour is red, and Élise’s is blue. I wanted to incorporate both without being too “sports teams-y” and think I came up with a fun solution. (Well, I should say that I have a home rainbow colour scheme, so knew how to bring in both). I’m really trying to be more intentional with my whole home’s colours this time around, and so far it’s worked out.
So what’s happening? Like in our main bedroom, we’re doing a 2/3 wall square wainscoting. Again, there will be wallpaper on the top half (this one from Spoonflower). I really wanted to do a toile, and was originally leaning to something with dinosaurs. This was a close second, but I thought that the Little and Fierce could incorporate more of Élise’s favourite things. (Since the room will be mostly red ha).
I bought these rust curtains and will be getting a paint colour to match. I like the tone on tone look, so we’ll see how it works. Even though the big bed has been in the room, we still haven’t put a proper duvet and cover yet. (In my defence, she went from sleeping in a crib with no blankets/pillows and now has 7 blankets).
Things we already had on the moodboard include this light-up humidifier and training alarm clock. I also bought some air plans and cute planters (waiting on those) so that should be fun! I wanted a bit of yellow in the room and bought these pillow covers that Zachary picked out. (PS they don’t match the ones on the moodboard).
There’s a new semi-flush mount coming (I think it was shared on the list last year), that Zachary also picked out. Unfortunately, it’s back-ordered until mid-June? So it might not make it before we’re done… I also got a FREE mirror (similar to the one on the moodboard) and will be building some padded headboards.
I’ll be swapping the rug from their room with the one from our old living room. As soon as I moved the off-white one in here with the white walls and furniture, it read way too yellow. And I need to figure out what I’m going to do with their artwork, aka their baby handprints and ultrasound photos. (Some of them randomly fell off as you can see in the photos above, ha).
To-Do List / Where We’re Headed
Okay, so here are the most up-to-date photos of the room! I used my wide-angle lens so you can see the layout a bit better.
The beds are angled to each other and will be staying in the same positions-ish. (This is Élise’s bed and the storage drawer holds their extra sheets).
The new curtains I bought are much shorter and should go right to the bed. I’ll be taking down their little shelves (which also go into the curtains) and will figure out what to do with them after.
Zachary’s clothes are in the drawers below his bed, and Élise’s are in the dresser. We just reorganized everything after her 3rd birthday (a couple of weeks ago) so the top drawer is all “too big” stuff for the both of them.
I did have those things in boxes at the top of the closet so now it’s open. I really don’t like that drawer cart, so we’ll fix that! Oh, and I am leaving the closet rail at the top (we kept the doors in the basement).
To-Do List
- Remove shelves and paintings
- Patch, sand and prime holes
- Replace old receptacles/switches
- Paint ceiling edges and closet rail white
- Measure, cut and install trim (window casing, horizontal pieces, vertical corners, centre pieces)
- Build closet shelves
- Patch, sand and prime all trim joints
- Caulk all inner seams
- Paint red walls and closet
- Build headboards (cut wood, foam/batting, add fabric, secure together)
- Wallpaper top portion
- Fix and hang the mirror
- Hang art?
- Swap the rug and curtains
- Dresser makeover?
- Swap light fixture
- Set up beds and take photos!
We’ve done the first three tasks already, and I started working on the closet shelves this week. The trickiest part about this room is that I can’t start and stop anything too big because the kids still have to sleep in a non-construction zone. And they’re always here. Well, that’s the hardest part, ha!
About the One Room Challenge
If you’ve never heard of the ORC before, the One Room Challenge is a twice-yearly event where 20 featured designers (and a bunch of linking participants) makeover a space in six weeks (or 8). Design/DIY bloggers can participate as well, and I’ve done it 8 other times!
- Spring 2016: Basement Half-Bathroom Addition
- Spring 2017: Bro’s Budget Bathroom
- Fall 2017: Garage Makeover
- Fall 2018: Basement Kitchen Renovation (which we didn’t complete until much later, you can check it out here)
- Spring 2019: Main Bedroom 1 AND Main Bedroom 2
- Fall 2019: Not-so-Neutral Nursery
- Spring 2020: New Main Bedroom
- Fall 2020: White and Rainbow Bathroom
This room is really similar in structure/design to our main bedroom, so I’m pretty comfortable with the breakdown of how I’ll work and share my posts. We’re still dealing with COVID issues, and right now, in Ontario Canada, everything is pretty much on lockdown. My light fixture is on back-order and I still have a few things to buy (that have to wait for stores to open). But other than that, I have the bulk of my materials and am ready to go!
Good luck to all participating, and let’s get this done :)
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