Kids’ bedroom redo: sleeping for 6!

By Elle

I know, it’s been waaaay too long between posts, mainly because of elderly parent care (which has dramatically impacted our home renovation progress) but also because I can’t find it in my heart right now to write about fashion when the events of the world, particularly the state of our environment, are weighing so heavily on me. I’ve obviously sidelined the fashion posts, for now anyway, but I will post home renovation news as we have it.

We’ve wanted for some time to create a large sleeping space for most, if not all, of the grandkids (7 in total) when they visit, which luckily is fairly often. The kids’ room had been outfitted with one queen-sized bed and a toddler bed, which could comfortably accommodate no more than four kids. Bunk beds seemed like the right answer so because the room is large enough, we bought twin-over-full bunks, which allow us to sleep up to six people. (The youngest is less than a year, so she still uses an infant bed.)

We had a few “to-do’s” to prepare for the bed install:

• We patched and painted the room, which had been the color of raspberry sherbet (see photo below) — not horrible but we were eager for a full refresh.
• To avoid any accidental decapitations, we removed the traditional ceiling fan/light (see photo below) and replaced it with an enclosed fan/light.
• We repainted all the trim, window/door frames and doors in White Dove by Benjamin Moore.

Photo of kids’ bedroom when prior owners lived in the house.

Original fan that we removed to avoid accidental decapitations.

Choosing a paint color always feels so serious. I knew I wanted a color in the lilac family, so I chose three options to test. It’s so important to test the colors using large brushstrokes on different walls, and to look at them during different times of day.  In the kids’ room, Gentle Violet turned out to be too pink; Stardust Evening looked too purple; but Brushed Lavender looked just right. We opted for Valspar Signature (no VOC) paint.

On the left wall, you can see our paint color test. Gentle Violet is on the far left, Stardust Evening is in the middle and Brushed Lavender is on the right.

The bed install was fairly easy and straightforward but because we wanted symmetry with the ladders (and didn’t want a ladder close to the ceiling fan/light in any case), we had to do some deconstruction and reconstruction to the bed on the left.

The beds are from Wayfair: Viv & Rae Pierre twin over fulls. We reconstructed the bed on the left so that the ladder would sit on the left rather than the right.

The enclosed fan/LED light combo is from Stile Anderson.

The L-shaped room is ideal for a reading nook.

Voila! I’m not keen on the style, size and color of the armchair, but it’s one I’ve had forever and am keeping until I come across another more to my liking.

I bought the handmade stuffed bunny during my recent trip to Poland for the littlest of my granddaughters, whom I call córeczka, which means little baby girl in Polish.

I still haven’t settled on quilts or blankets for the beds, but I’m leaning toward lightweight white quilts for a clean, uniform look.

We’ll probably fasten the two beds together and trim them out so that they look like one large construct.

We generally paint our ceilings the same color as the walls to give the space a larger feel. The ceiling tends to “disappear” when it’s the same color as the walls.

In this photo, you can see a portion of our baseboard heater cover, which we painted hammered silver.

So far no one has fallen out of a top bunk, knock wood. That said, one of the grandkids is a boy, and if anyone is to come sailing out of a top bunk, I fully expect it to be him. Sigh.