MFH Home Tour: Youngest Daughter’s Room

Yesterday my 12-year-old daughter conned me into helping her clean her room. I was offered breakfast in bed, plus a batch of peanut butter brownies upon completion. Smart kid. Five and a half l-o-n-g hours later her room was finally back on track and I had my brownies.

Since kid rooms never stay clean for long, I figured this would be a good time to give you guys a tour of her room. Come take a peek.

This is a view of her bedroom from the hallway. As you can see, it’s a pretty small space. About 100 square feet. We live in a 1920 craftsman, and her room is built into one of the eaves. In fact, this used to be part of the attic. A previous owner converted it into a third bedroom. Smart move.

When we renovated the house, we discovered the original heart pine floors hidden under the sub-floor in this room. Such a happy surprise. We added the plank ceiling to emphasis the sloped ceiling.

Keeping a small space like this from feeling over-crowded is admittedly a bit of a design challenge, but we’ve found some creative storage solutions that do the trick. These lockers are a big part of how we keep her room from looking cluttered. I found them at an estate sale for $20, and spray painted them white.

They must have been sports lockers because each locker is twice as wide as a standard locker. See how two doors open to reveal one really wide locker? So much storage!

Since each locker only came with one shelf, we added more shelves to make the most of the space. And let me tell you: they hold a TON of stuff. I love that everything vanishes when you close the doors. That eliminates a lot of visual clutter.

And unlike a toy box, lockers aren’t something she’ll ever outgrow. We’ve seen the contents of her lockers change over the years, but she still loves them as much as she did when we first added them to her room.

Lockers are just cool.

And they’re easy to customize, too. She’s had a lot of fun decorating hers with magnets and locker accessories.

She even turned one of the shelves into a bedroom for her mini American Girl Dolls.

I found this little rose painting at a church rummage sale for $.50, and we glued heavy-duty magnets on the back of it, so she could hang it on the side of her lockers. Fun!

Alright, now that you’ve seen her lockers, let me show you the rest of her room …

This is her bed. She likes to change out her colors often, so we painted her room a greige color that goes with anything.

Here’s the color we chose. It’s Realist Beige by Sherwin Williams.

We found her headboard at a thrift store. The pillows are from various thrift stores, estate sales and yard sales. We always freeze second-hand throw pillows before we use them.

Right now she has a Pottery Barn Teen duvet cover on her bed. We found it at a thrift store, too.

And I think her bed skirt du jour is from Tommy Hilfiger. It too is a thrift store find.

I paid $1 for her nightstand. It’s a little folding table. She picked out the milk glass lamp and lampshade. The lamp came out of my mother-in-law’s basement. The lampshade was a yard sale find. We paid $.25 for it.

She’s already developed a love for milk glass, and picks up pieces at yard sales.

Before we move on to another part of her room, I want to draw your attention to the legs of her nightstand. I think using pieces with open legs can really help to keep a small space from feeling overcrowded.

This is her desk. It belonged to my grandmother’s husband, and has proven to be perfect for my daughter’s room. For such a small desk, it has an amazing amount of storage space. The chair is a yard sale find. I think I paid $3 for it.

I leave all the decorating to my daughter. She’s had a lot of fun shopping for accessories for her room. You’ll notice there’s another piece of milk glass on her desk.

Like I said: this desk has a ton of storage. The top opens to reveal a big storage compartment …

And there are drawers built into both sides of the desk. Such a brilliant design.

We rescued my daughter’s dresser from my mother-in-law’s garage. She bought it at a yard sale, but never ended up doing anything with it, so she offered it to us. When we got it, it was purple, and missing big sections of veneer from the top.

I patched it, repainted it and added glass knobs to bring it back to life. 12 years later it’s still going strong.

Here are some of the decorative pieces my daughter has on her dresser. It’s all stuff she’s gotten at estate sales and thrift stores. Well, except for the metallic vase … she stole that off of my prop shelf in the basement. Ha!

She has a lot of hair accessories, so I made her a headband holder one year for Christmas. It’s just an empty oatmeal container that I wrapped in scrapbook paper, and glued to a white plate. The base is a candlestick glued to the underside of the plate. It’s proven to be a good storage solution. She stores her bows inside the oatmeal container.

We hung this hook for her guitar, but a while back she turned it into a hook for her scarves.

I found this large woven basket at a Salvation Army thrift store earlier this year, and it’s really helped to clean up this corner. She has some of her American Girl furniture stashed inside.

This dandelion vinyl decal only took a couple minutes to apply to the wall, and it’s such a fun detail.

Alright, now that I’ve shown you her room, let me give you a quick tour of her closet …

This is her closet. It’s built into a recess in the wall behind the linen closet. Since it’s elevated off the ground, we added a stepping stool. I painted the door with dry erase paint, so she could use it as a big memo board.

Here’s the inside of her closet. Like the rest of her room, it’s a small space, and it’s taken a bit of creativity to make it work.

I think this is our best arrangement yet. All of her shirts are hanging. Her pants are folded on the shelf above her shirts …

Her t-shirts are in one of the baskets. Her shorts are in the other. And her skirts and dresses are in the bin at the bottom of her closet along with her spare hangers.

We’ve even utilized the side walls of her closet. Her right wall has a rack for her jewelry.

It’s an Ikea kitchen rack.

And her left wall has hooks for her purses.

This keeps the floor of her closet clear, so she can easily climb in and pick out her outfit for the day.

So like I said at the beginning of the tour, it’s a small space, but we’ve managed to squeeze lots of function into 100 square feet. I think it’s a nice room to grow up in.

My oldest daughter is trying to con me into helping her with her room, so watch out for another leg of my home tour soon.

In the meantime, you can find any parts of my home tour that you might have missed here.