Tween Bedroom Makeover & Mural
with Cassandra Lavalle
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This post, Tween Bedroom Makeover & Mural, was created in partnership with Ace Hardware. All paint for this project was provided by them. Thank you for supporting the brands that help bring creative content to Coco Kelley!
My name is Cassandra LaValle.
If you had asked me in high school what I wanted to be when I grew up, I probably would have said a magazine editor. I suppose, in a way, that vision has come true. I spend my days here at Coco Kelley pulling together my favorite products and inspirations in the fashion, design, and entertaining realm, reporting them to my readers as any good editor would - with plenty of thought and opinion.
With a background in Marketing, Event Design and Visual Merchandising, it's not hard to see how I landed here. But it was my first editorial experience - a brief but serendipitous stint as a Market Editor for Seattle Homes & Lifestyles - that re-inspired me to follow my passion for writing and design, and I launched Coco Kelley in May 2007 as a way to share all my stylish obsessions.
These days Coco Kelley has evolved into a full lifestyle company, offering interior styling and boutique event design to private clients across the country, as well as merchandising, branding and art direction services to brands.
For months now, we've been promising our 10-year-old that she would be getting a major bedroom makeover. But, it turns out, re-doing a tween's room is not as easy as it would seem! Just finding inspiration for the room itself was a challenge - all the girls' rooms being overly, well, girly.
Slowly but surely, my step-daughter and I put together our own ideas for the room based on a few spaces that we liked elements of. For those of you parents in that in-between age, you'll recognize how this room reflects exactly where she's at in life. On the verge of entering those early teenage years, but still playful and sweet with plenty of childhood left in her.
She needed so much to get to where it's at now - a new bed, a dresser, and some additional thoughtful storage. Mostly, it was time to toss the furniture she had had in there since she was four (!!) and create a space that felt 100% her and way more functional. But the biggest change was the PAINT!
This room came with plenty of challenges (it's small, it's awkwardly shaped, the windows and doors take up so much space...) but one complaint that my step-daughter had most was that it was DARK.
When she was young, my husband had painted a pretty blue mural on the walls with trees, and it was super sweet and perfect for her. But it wasn't doing the room any favors when it came to brightening it up. So she and I both agreed that while we still wanted color, the walls needed to be way lighter.
One of my favorite elements in this room is the canopy over the bed. It's just a simple piece, but we actually used it to help choose the accent colors for the room! The tassels were perfect.
I went to our local Ace store for a ton of Clark+Kensington interior paint samples. Her favorite color is blue, so I picked out about a dozen samples for the walls, and then some additional ones for the mural. Apparently I should just have her pick out paint from now on because she was incredibly decisive! Here's what we ended up with:
Main Wall Color:Salty Seas (29A-1) (a super light aqua)
Accent Colors:Black Chiffon (N-C15) (black), Isla Bonita (21C-7) (yellow), Hummingbird (30C-7) (teal green), Apple of My Eye (08C-7) (red), and - my favorite - Cha Cha Cha (09C-5) (coral pink).
While I'm one hundred percent certain that this room will get a lot more rock 'n roll as she gets older, for now this art by Jennifer Ament (wall art & skateboard) is just enough to add a touch of attitude.
This area between the door and the closet was always a little weird with her old layout. So, I decided to make it a calm moment in the space. I had this old bench and threw a fun throw over it that blends with the walls. She's always wanted a mirror in the room, and we had this one laying around, so up it went! The pop of yellow was really fun. And of course, the llama head. She's been begging for one for at least a year! Now, at least clothes get dumped on the bench instead of the floor. Ha!
Last but not least, adding these shallow shelves for collectibles as they needed a proper display area! I think their fun colors pop so much more against the lighter paint color. It's perfect. Plus, there is plenty of room to keep adding more shelves!
What do you think about the space now? I hope it's a room she can continue to grow into! It definitely feels more 'grown up' than the space did before, and I have no doubt she'll continue to add her own touches to really make it hers.
