Dace's Room Makeover

Last January, I published a post called "Violet's Room Makeover." We really overhauled our youngest daughter's room, covering a focal wall in wallpaper and kitting it out with new bedding, a new rug and cool accessories. Ever since, I've been feeling kind of bad that we haven't done much to our other daughter's room--it's looked pretty much the same since we moved into our house five years ago. I've thought about wallpapering, but, honestly, the thought of it is daunting. And she has a lot of neat stuff on her walls that would probably have to come down in order to let the wallpaper shine.

So, I decided to just make a few easy changes to modernize it a bit and make it a little hipper and more befitting a soon-to-be eight-year-old...just in time for her first sleepover party! See if you can spot the differences...ha ha!

Dace's "New" Room

The Way It Looked Before

The biggest difference is the new hanging light fixture (the MASKROS) from IKEA. It's too bad you can't see the old track lighting in the "before" picture, but I'm not surprised the photographer from the magazine cropped it out because it was pretty ugly! I've always liked the design of the MASKROS ceiling light (I even have a magazine clipping of it from when it first came out) and I finally had the perfect spot for it. It casts really cool shadows on the walls when it's lit, and Dace loves it.

Other than that, I added a fabric banner (the word, "LOVE") that I bought at the newly opened Nordstrom store in Ottawa (love Nordstrom...can't wait for it to open here), some new pillows and some new wall art.

I loved the trendy arrow shape and the dainty vintage-looking knobs on this necklace hanger I found at cute clothing and housewares retailer, Francesca's, in the States, but I was not so sold on the turquoise and coral color it came in. I bought it anyway and painted over it with Bluestone Cottage "Driftwood" chalk paint (Bluestone Cottage makes beautiful colors of chalk paint...and it's made in Canada) and used a bit of dollar store pink acrylic to paint the knobs my favorite shade of pink. The original arrow design is visible through the chalk paint and now looks subtly cool instead of trendy overboard.

I also hung this sweet word art, which I had out on our patio all summer and which had some water stains...but not before I covered those water stains with a collage of flowers I cut out of old magazines. Nothing like decoupage to refresh old, damaged pieces!

I'm definitely not done with Dace's room...it's still a work in progress, which can be said for pretty much every room in this house. I still think about doing wallpaper--or maybe stenciling a pattern on the wall to mimic wallpaper--but for now, I'm happy with the little changes. And Dace is happy, which is really all that matters when it comes to our kids' rooms, right?