The ragged wren : Shabby-Beach Bedroom

This year my daugther turned 12, my how the time flies!

In our last home she wanted a princess mural, she gave me all the details, and I painted it.

It fit her age at the time.

For the past two years (in this house), she has been living in an unfinished room. I know....you'd think I would focus on her bedroom before, lets say, my bathroom....but truthfully, I just wasn't sure exactly what I wanted to do. She trusted me to make it great, just expressing a love for the beach. I love the beachy style myself, half my house is beachy, but I ran into three problems. 1) Trying to make sure it didn't look like the rest of the house. 2)We don't live close to a beach, so it couldn't be to themey. 3) Making it fit a tween, into her teens.

I wish I could say I had some long weekend of working on it, and had some sort of big reveal....but this room has been coming together for over a year, one piece at a time. I think she appreciates it more, seeing how it all came together, that rooms don't just get slapped together.

Though, she may have just felt a bit neglected in the design department.

I tried to go with shabby chic, meets the beach in here. Not a whole lot of bright colors, keeping it simple. So if she starts to grow out of it, I can tweak a few things, to change the mood of the room.

When we started, she wanted everything white, white walls, bedding, all of it. I couldn't go quite that white, especially for a girl who is super active (and messy). So we brought in some shades of aqua and a little pop of yellow.

Since the headboard was the real statement in the room, I opted for the focal wall to be on a different wall. You may have heard me talk about this "Herringbone Shuffle" stencil before....I wanted this for the longest time, but didn't have anywhere to put it. I finally broke down and ordered it anyways, hoping to stick it in one of the girls rooms.

It was the perfect addition for the room, and she LOVES it.

This stencil is a bit tricky, I'll give you the simple how-to here soon. I ended up using 7 colors...a major undertaking! But I think it was worth it in the end.

Trying to figure out what to put on this wall, had been a hard decision. I finally found this fun piece in Round Top, a couple of weeks ago, at one of my favorite antique shops from back home, Old Glory. I knew it was the perfect fit. The reclaimed-trim frame, holds an antiqued piece of zinc, which makes the perfect spot to hang up some pictures with magnets, and you can even jot down some notes with chalk!
And how great that it matched the worn look of the bed.

My favorite part of the room, is the headboard piece. This was so fun to find and put together. I collected some parts from an old table, a piece of a bed, and a door...and made them into a headboard. It was not very cool looking before the paint job, which is probably why my husband thought I was nuts! The shutter nightstands, were a recent addition, another one of my crazy schemes, that I roped my husband into helping me with. A friend had given me 2 sets of shutters, and I knew I had to turn them into something awesome. We wired in the scones, putting a switch just under the headboard, within arms reach.

The easy tutorial for making this whole thing is coming soon!!

She used to have a sea urchin lamp on a side table, and after knocking it over 3 times in her sleep, it couldn't be fixed a third time :(

These scones, give off just the right amount of light, and mounted to the wall, it's near impossible to knock these off.

The bedding is sort of a mish-mosh. The white duvet and shams, are from Target. The duvet at the foot of the bed, and matching pillows, are from Pottery Barn.
I couldn't find sheets that I liked, that had any color, so I made my own. Using white sheets we already owned, I added a 8" strip of fabric across the top, trimmed with a yellow ruffle. The throw pillow was made from a coordinating fabric. I tried to keep anything beachy out of the bedding, so it was easy to change it later (cause we have a love for change in this house).

For all the pieces to make the bed, and nightstands, it cost me about $50. The sconces (from Target) were about $25 a piece. Not bad for a $100 project...I'm not even sure you can buy a new headboard for that, much less nightstands to go with it!

We brought in a bit of the beach, in some of the desk and dresser decor, nothing permanent.

The dresser, is a piece of unfinished furniture from Ikea. This was a really inexpensive option, at $149. Then you can customize it, to fit your room.

To get the distressed finish...I first stained the wood, then I brushed on a wax based product in certain areas ( this keeps the paint from sticking and makes it easier to sand later). The final layer was the latex-based coat in a turquoise. Once it had set for a couple hours, I went back with some sand paper, and roughed up the areas that had the wax. The paint comes off with less effort this way. I didn't even seal this piece, since it was unfinished. If it gets banged up over time, it adds to the character. I bought some fun yellow metal, and glass knobs at Hobby Lobby.

The rocker is a family piece, and has moved all over, in all of the places I've lived. Originally used by my grandmother to rock my father, and then to rock me and my siblings, and has been used for each of my kids. Now that my kids have grown out of being rocked :( my oldest daughter has adopted this as her "reading spot". We opted not to paint this, as it is a special piece.

The paper garland was made by my daughter, in one of our weekly, craft project nights. A very simple project (that you can see how to do here), that she did all by herself. It was a fun contribution to her room.