Cheap, Fast and Easy: DIY Kid's Room Makeover

It was time, 7 years of purple walls (make that 'Smokey Lilac'); from babyhood, through toddler mayhem, straight on to little kid...there's bound to be a bit of grubby on them walls. It was time for a makeover. The criteria was strict; it had to be cheap, fast, and easy. It also had to be transitional, 'cause we may not be long for the little green cottage, it looks like we just might be moving on - more on that later. So there's that, and of course I had to consult Pony Girl.
She has told me that I may continue to call her Pony Girl "It's fine, whatever." But only until "The Muse strikes and something better comes along." Yeah, she said that.

She's going through a 'Red Period'. After I vetoed the red walls, I asked her for suggestions, "What do you want in your room?"
She said, "Butterflies, Surfer Girl, Animals, and Music."

The Mission:
Kid Room Makeover

Time Frame:
One Week. If you had the luxury of long uninterrupted days, you might be able to do it in 4.

Budget:
After painting expenses I allowed myself a budget of $50. If I had more time I would have lowered the budget by making more items.

The Vision:
Butterflies, Surfer Girl, Animals, and Music...and red.

O.k. I can do that; bring all those favorite things to life in one room - easy peasy. The key is color. I began by painting the walls a fresh light cream color.

Then we have the Neutrals: wood floors, wood furniture, cream and white, and a little gray. Then we bring in the main accent color RED. Then I added one more little pop of color with Turquoise.

Let's start with butterflies shall we?

I made a sort of draping butterfly net over the bed by using 2 sheer tab top curtain panels that I had in my sewing space. I screwed a few hooks in the ceiling over the head of the bed and simply hooked the tabs onto to them. Then I found some red butterflies at my local craft store. The butterflies had long wires attached to them which I simply clipped short and stuck them into the curtain panels. Done!

If you don't have sheer curtains laying about, you could use fabric or even an old sheet cut in half length-wise, then sew some loops of ribbon to the tops. Not into butterflies? You could easily cut your preferred shapes out of felt or fabric and baste them on. Sea creatures, planets, birds, leaves, etc. would be pretty cool too!

Now for 'Surfer Girl'. This was easily accomplished with a couple lengths of red and white Hawaiian fabric that I bought on the islands and have been hoarding in my stash. Now we have curtains!

For the window curtain I cut the length of fabric in half, quickly hemmed the cut ends and sewed loops to the two tops using bias tape/binding, you could use ribbon or twill tape as well. For the closet curtain I hemmed the cut ends of the fabric and used a spring loaded curtain rod with curtain clips. Done!

For the other window curtain it was pretty much the same process. I had some sweet white and red vintage seersucker fabric, but there wasn't quite enough to achieve the right length of curtains. So, I sewed some vintage white cotton eyelet to the bottoms of the curtain panels and Done!

The inspiration for the Turquoise came from Pony Girl's dollhouse furniture. Plus, red and turquoise look great together.

Dollhouse handcrafted by the Engineer

Where were we? Oh yes, Animals!

I can not tell you how much I love this chicken! Collage is one of my favorite projects to do with kids, I love the endless art that can be created. Just grab some colored paper and have at it! This picture already had the perfect color scheme and it's gorgeous; I just popped it into an old inexpensive frame I had around the house, instant art!

Animals and music over at the desk. The desk was originally found for free on the side of the road, given a fresh coat of paint and has plenty of drawers for storage of art supplies and such.

I spy 2 easy DIY projects. The wooden cut out of the state of Oregon was made by a family member. Simply trace your state, province, continent, onto a piece of wood, cut out with a jig saw, a little sanding and varnish and you got cool art!

I made the deer head by stenciling fabric paint onto a square of fabric scrap and stretched it over a cheap artist canvas and used a staple gun to secure it in place.

And of course I never tire of finding uses for spray painted food tins.

Next to the bed I placed an old end table with my grandmother's mirror. I used some vintage tins on the table to hold her rock and found treasure collections. Below the table is an old school locker basket to hold all of the current library books in one place (I realize that this may be a dream in the straw, but I'm hoping there will be less mad scrambling to find our library books come the due dates.)

My Turquoise weekend bag was sacrificed to Barbie storage. An old collapsible peg rack found at the local thrift for $1.50 was ugly, but nothing a little paint couldn't fix.

Galvanized tubs at the foot of the bed make for great toy storage. You could hunt down some great baskets from a thrift store too.

And a little extra pop of color on the dresser with my grandmother's blue canning jars will become storage for my girl's bead collection.

So, what I bought for the makeover:

Butterflies from the craft store $7.00
Galvanized Storage Tubs from the big home hardware store $15.00
Hat Rack from the local thrift $1.50
I splurged on a new muted red and white stripe Duvet cover from Ikea since I didn't have time to make my own $15.00

Grand Total: $38.50

Not too shabby!

I hope that maybe some of these Cheap, Fast, and Easy DIY ideas have inspired you!

Do you have any Cheap, Fast, and Easy DIY projects that you love?