Painting and Decorating a Cute Girls Room

We needed to paint and decorate our daughter’s bedroom.  She asked for one thing - a rainbow painted on her wall. She didn’t want traditional rainbow colors though. She wanted purple, blue, pink, and yellow only. In my mind, this didn’t sound too daunting. Adjust a few painted arches, right? Wrong. Look online for pictures of rainbow painted walls. Most have gaps between the colors because the ones that are painted next to each other usually bleed into one another.  We didn’t want gaps, so I tried to paint the colors next to each other. It was a total failure. We tried many different methods

• First, I tried to simply draw the arches on the wall, but I could not forehand the arches
• Then, I tried the string trick. I place a thumbtack in the middle of the hall just above the baseboard. I tied a string to the thumbtack and connected it to a pencil. The idea is that the strings tension will force the pencil to make a smooth, clean line.  However, I just could not make this work. My daughter’s wall has some slight texture and it kept changing the pencil’s path.  I’m sure someone smarter than me could make it work, but I could not.
• Next, I covered the entire wall in painters tape and tried the string trick again. Same problem. 
• My final try was to create a digital drawing of the rainbow and use a small projector to project the image on the wall. This took a lot of setup. I hade to create the image with just the right amount of arch to look good in her room and each band of the rainbow had to be just the right thickness.  Then we had to use a tv tray and a stack of books to get the projector at just the right height. We also had to pin sheets over her window to block out enough light so that we could see the projection on the wall. I then tried to paint to the lines. Being as careful as possible I was simply not talented enough to do this. I kept bleeding the colors together and it was going to take multiple coats of paint to get it  completed. 

Defeated, I had to tell my daughter I simply couldn’t paint the rainbow.  We told her we would by a large vinyl decal of a rainbow and do that instead. By this time, however, we had completed my son’s geometric wall and she really liked it. She asked if she could have one with the colors she picked out. (Absolutely she could!). We painted over the failed rainbow and began the process of taping off her wall. Her colors were a little brighter so they took more coats. The worst color was yellow. Even though we used the same brand paint for the walls, the yellow just seemed to soak in.  We even had to go back to the store and buy more yellow paint. However, after two days, we finished painting her walls. Next, it was time to decorate.

We took both kids out for a shopping spree to decorate their rooms.  We detailed how we decorated our son’s room in our last post.  He chose a gaming theme that we thought would be hard to find decorations for, but turned out to be easy.  Our daughter initially chose a rainbow theme so we hunted for rainbow decorations - surprisingly harder to find.  Yet, as the day progressed, so did her choice of theme.  We went from rainbow, to ballerina, to butterflies.  Obviously, she needed more time to decide. She did at least know that she wanted mostly pink colors.  So, what did we do?

• At Walls Bargain Center, we found a huge deal on this fantastic curtain rod.  At less than $20, we couldn’t be happier.  
• We also found these sheer pink butterfly curtains.  We knew that even if she didn’t settle on the butterfly theme, the curtains were also discrete enough that they would blend in to whatever other design she chose.

We spent the entire day shopping and she kept changing her mind.  So, we decided to give her more time to think.

After a few days she has settled on butterflies.  So, it looks like we are due another shopping spree.   

However, the butterfly decorations will just be a small part of the room.  The rest of her room is covered by her large toys.  There is the large “Barbie” house, her play kitchen, and her dolls.  These provide plenty of “decoration” for one wall.  

We did move her TV to the middle of the same wall, so that the TV cord that hangs down would be partially covered by the Barbie house.  I was skeptical of this at first, but my wife has now done this in both kids’ bedrooms and in our living room and really does help blend the cords into the room.  (Always listen to the wife!)

Finally, we need to talk about my daughter’s headboard.  We bought this when we first moved into the house for only $25.  It was at our local furniture store and had been dropped during the shipping process.  Because of a few scratches, we were able to get it for a steal.  A couple a small passes with some pink paint to touch up the scratches and the headboard looks good as new.  

What’s left to do?

We need to buy a few butterfly decorations and eventually replace her bedroom and closet doors.