Ava's room makeover

We all have those rooms that we've known for a while need some work, but we just keep putting it off. This was the case with Ava's room. We really haven't done anything to it since before she was born. I wish I would've taken a "before picture", though I'm not sure I would want proof of the ciaos! The carpeting was stained, nothing really matched, and in that small room she had a bed, a doll crib, a set of shelves, a dress up trunk, 2 dressers, a broken changing table, and to top it all off she was sharing a room with Serenity. The walls were basically lined with furniture and there was a real lack of organization. So, of course, because of that, it was ALWAYS messy!
A few years ago when we remodeled our house we went ahead and bought laminate flooring for the entire house. We did it all, but never got around to laying down new floor in Ava and Mackenzie's rooms. So last Monday Kevin casually suggested we redo the floors in Ava's room this weekend. He has now said he will never suggest anything again. That job turned into a full blown redecoration of her room. We layed new floors, painted, built a new bed, among many other things. So here's my pictures of how it turned out.
Here's the view from the door. The first thing we did was kick Serenity out and put her things into Mackenzie's room, which is empty half the time when Mackenzie's at her Mom's. That opened up a lot more room in Ava's room.
Here is the right corner of her room. Pretty simple, but I love her dress-up box. A good friend of mine made that for her when she was about a year old. I tried to leave the walls a little open to add more pictures later.

This is in the far right corner of her room. When the dresser was given to us it was white with purple sponge painting. We sanded that down and refinished it with brown. The only problem was that while the knobs were off and we were painting the kids lost one! Isn't that always how it goes? I bought a cheap mirror at Wal-Mart and used Rub Ons from Stampin' Up to decorate it.
The curtains on the windows are called window quilts and they are the greatest thing EVER! They are made with batting sandwiched between two pieces of cotton. Then I hand stitched the appliques on. These curtains are so thick that not only do they work like blackout curtains and block all the sunlight, they also block heat and cold from outside. I love them. They are so functional and they were my favorite project in this room because they were so much fun to make. Here's a close up picture and a picture of the one next to her bed.




This is the picture of her new bed. Kevin basically framed out under the bed like you would frame out a house, then he set the bed on top. My kids love "Cubby Holes" as we call them, like little hiding places, and they make them all the time. So we thought it would be nice for Ava to have one built into her room. So we made one underneath her bed. This is a quiet place she can go to read, draw, or just relax. Her radio is in her cubby hole so she can listen to her audio stories, too. The polka dot thing you see are her shelves. We turned them inward so the space could be a little more closed off, but the back of the shelves was the unsightly brown cardboard. So we painted it and Mod Podged cut out paper circles to the back. Then we Mod Podged over the whole thing twice and added two coats of varnish. This was so much fun to do and now I'm on the look out to find out what else I can Mod Podge around here! Lastly, the letters on her bed read "Sweet Dreams Ava". These were made with my sister's Big Shot and were applied the same way we did the back of the shelves.


Here's a picture of the top of the bed. Remember that old broken changing table? Well, since we never like to waste anything, we re-purposed it to make her canopy. I drew the shape I wanted and Kevin used the bandsaw to cut it out. Then he used a 15/64 drill bit to drill holes all the way through the board and a bigger bit, 23/64 to drill in those same holes, but only half way in. That way a Christmas light would fit perfectly. We think it turned out really well, though this project was not very well planned. As you can see from the picture, we didn't take into account that she has a ceiling fan! So now we have to cut down the fan blades so it will be functional again. Oops! We hung a large curtain rod behind that with sparkly tulle hanging from it to give her cubby hole some "doors" without making it too dark.

Finally we have the left corner where her closet is. Her doll crib that Kevin made her for Christmas fit perfectly there. The kids and I put our hand prints on the wall as a reminder to Ava of how much fun we had together when we painted her room. Kevin didn't get to help, but everybody else pitched in... Even Serenity!


We were able to finish in one weekend, but it wasn't easy! I have to thank Kevin because I can be hard to work with. I'm a perfectionist and a little bit stubborn, but he's always so patient and loving. Plus he went 33 hours with no sleep so we could get the floors done the first day! So, the kids watched way too many movies, we stayed up until the wee hours of the mornings, but it was so worth it. Ava couldn't have been happier. She came out Monday morning and said, "Mommy, I love my new room so much I don't ever want to come out!"
Stay tuned, as this coming weekend we conquer Mackenzie and Serenity's room!