tap tap tap ... is this thing on?
a nearly four-month hiatus was unintentional, but life's like that sometimes. seriously, though ... how long and exhausting and existentially brutal have the past four months been?!
but now it's time for spring ... new energy ... things shifting. time to think locally. and what is more local than finally changing up my daughter's room?
we've been talking about it for nearly two years now, and harper has changed her mind four different times. last week, though, the one room challenge started again, and i decided that's it: time to jump in and play along from home and make this room happen. over the next six weeks, harp's room will finally ... hopefully ... get that makeover, barring any new surprises (like the $1000 we spent in the past two weeks to find out if our aging cat is dying (test results: he isn't), or spending the past 10 days watching marc try to fix our dryer, fingers crossed that he could figure it out (he did)).
the room will grow up and and warm up, and turn into the den of pre-teenage coziness that harper wants. without being a literal DEN of coziness, like she said she wanted. ("mom ... maybe we could make a wolf den! like, wood and sticks on the walls, and a furry bedspread ..." hilde santos-tomas would have loved that idea.)
we started with color ... what colors did she want in her room? she initially said dark blue, gray, aqua, yellow. so i played around with that and came up with an idea. and she liked it. and then she didn't.
then i showed her the beautiful cole + sons birches wallpaper, and she loved that. and then she didn't.
i showed her rooms that used stikwood on the walls, and told her we could do something along those lines to bring in the "wood/den" feeling.
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she thought that might be okay, then changed her mind.
after that, i sort of let the idea go for awhile. she wasn't in a place to be sure of anything, and i didn't want to make a move without her being on board. why waste time and money if she wasn't sure of what she wanted?
before the holidays last year, she said she was finally ready to get a bigger bed and update her room. we started with what kind of bed she wants, and talked about buying a wood headboard or making something, but then she spent the night with a friend who has an upholstered headboard and harp declared that she, too, wanted an upholstered headboard. we continued to talk through things, and then out of the blue she said, "i want bedding like what we have in the guest room." what we have in the guest room is this duvet cover from schoolhouse electric:
and i told her, "harp: if you love that bedding, you can have it. we'll do the room around that starting point. what do you think?" and she was 100% in, and stayed there. (bonus points for not having to buy new bedding, just new sheets.) i began the hunt for options for a new bed, since she will be upsizing to a full from a twin. i showed her some upholstered ones, but she couldn't really visualize what it might all look like, so i made some mood boards to help her out.
first was a background wall color, then the bedding, a picture of her dresser (which will stay the same) and of a writing desk similar to the one i've had since college (which she wants to keep), and the prints that she currently has framed and on her walls. then i pulled in a couple of other pieces, and different upholstered beds from world market and target and wayfair so she could see how it might all come together.
she ix-nayed the gold one right away, but thought the natural ones looked okay, and she really liked the idea of bringing in the coral color on the desk.
time went by and we didn't do a thing. (holidays, general sense of ennui after the first of the year, you know ...) about a month ago she asked when we could start her room, so i looked up the beds again, and the same ones were no longer available, though there are others that are pretty close. i remembered her comment about liking the coral, and threw in this wild card from target ...
i loved it, but she said no way, jose.
i also showed her this bed which, while still upholstered, also has a dark metal element that would play off the black metal knobs on her dresser, and the proposed pipe shelves.
she loved this one. like, LOVED. because i'm an idiot, though, i hadn't read any of the reviews about it before showing it to harper. turns out, many people who had bought it didn't like that it felt cheap, that the metal was brown instead of black/bronze, the upholstery appears beige online but is actually white, etc.
uuugggghhhhhhh.
i also saw someone on instagram had the same bed, and she said it was from pottery barn, so i checked there. yeah ... that bed has natural linen and a black/bronze frame, but it is also $1200 ... not the $280 that wayfair was offering. so i broke the news to harper, and she said that she really liked it because of the metal, which reminded her of henry's bed, and really ... she just wants a bed just like henry's.
yes, henry has an iron bed. not upholstered. iron. what harper apparently wanted all along but never told me.
again, uuugggghhhhh.
a quick search on wayfair later, i found a lovely metal bed that looks like a more feminine version of henry's. i did a little re-arranging of the mood board, and showed harp.
and she said, "YES! that's my room!"
the wall color is slightly lighter and slightly more gray. the bed is metal. the sconces in harp's room that we planned to keep will get replaced by these white and gold numbers from ikea. her ceiling light will get swapped out for a basket shade ... this ikea one, if the size isn't too big. her coral-painted writing desk will get these adorable bronze fox knobs from anthro. and the pipe and board shelves? i found this genius version on pinterest that will bring in a lighter wood tone and more of that coral/copper:
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the only thing left to figure out is the window treatment, but that will come as we pull it all together.
harp loves this plan, i love this plan, and i can't wait to get it started for her! as long as she doesn't change her mind about something else in the meantime ...
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