Girl’s English Menagerie Bedroom Makeover | Spring 2019 One Room Challenge Week 5

You might have noticed that we completely skipped week 4 of the One Room Challenge. I have only feeble excuses as to why. But we’ve made great strides in our daughter’s bedroom makeover in the past two weeks, so that’s something to celebrate. Somehow I thought this One Room Challenge would be an easy one, that we’d somehow finish well ahead of time. As usual, this bedroom makeover is going to be right down to the wire!

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Since our last update, we finally got the vintage bed moved into the center of the wall and put new bedding on it. The bedding is really cute; it kind of has an “English country garden” vibe. It actually changes the whole room idea from “pink safari” to “English menagerie.” I’m imaging a wealthy, eccentric family in the British countryside with a wild, overgrown garden filled with flowers and exotic animals. We’ll see! It’s the Mayflower Blush quilt set from Makers Collective.

The new dresser arrived just a few hours ago, which is wonderful because a few things have been hinging on it. We need to get the dresser moved into place so that we can adjust the bed placement and hang the stuffed animal busts over the bed. I just know in my heart that if I hung them now, we’d end up having to move the bed over an inch or two one direction or the other, and those animals would end up off-center. I also decided that the tiny decorative mirror we’ve had forever and were planning on using is just too small for the space above the new dresser. I ordered a new mirror last week from World Market and it’s already here! We have this same Segovia Whitewashed Mirror in our main floor powder room, and the carved wood and distressed finish are really, really beautiful. I think it’ll be perfect.

Once we moved the bed, we realized that there isn’t enough room to the right of the bed for both a nightstand and a reading chair. So we’re going ahead with the reading corner in that spot, and have moved the nightstand between the two big windows. I ordered four framed animal prints from Minted to hang in a 2×2 grid over the nightstand. I think it’ll end up being a good solution. And since the bed will end up being right next to the dresser (a much shorter, wider dresser than the one currently in the room), I don’t think a nightstand right next to the bed is necessary at all.

We also got the very sturdy magnetic bulletin boards hung over the desk. I was worried once we got the desk and bookcases in place that we wouldn’t have room for both bulletin boards, but they fit the spot perfectly. They are from a company called Chart a la Carte, and they are terrific. They have a magnetic frame on the front that easily pops off, and a perforated metal plate under the gray fabric, so you can customize the boards using whatever kind of fabric you want. Check out their site to see more details.

• CLEAN OUT EVERYTHING!! There’s so much clutter in this room that it’s pretty overwhelming. We have to Marie Kondo the heck out of this space before we can start to make it cute.
• Get rid of the old furniture (the bookcase, the wardrobe, and the dresser).
• Move the bed to then center of the wall instead of centering it under the square window.
• Add a new dresser, nightstand, desk, and two bookcases.
• Hang up new bulletin boards that we already have.
• Hang up unicorn, rabbit, and pink flamingo busts.
• Figure out reading corner.
• Buy, frame, and hang artwork.
• Clean out and reorganize the closet.
• New bedding??
• Finish styling.

Cleaning the room is still a major hurdle, but believe it or not, we’ve actually made a ton of progress. I feel like if I can carve out an hour or two to sit down in there with my daughter this weekend, we can get everything sorted, put away, etc. We need to move out the old dresser (it’s so heavy!!) and put in the new one, hang up wall decor and the mirror, and get last-minute stuff like a lamp for the reading corner and new pillows for the bed. And we’re still waiting for the pink reading chair to arrive. Cross your fingers that we can get all of that done before next week!

Thanks to Linda from Calling it Home and media partner Better Homes & Gardens for putting the One Room Challenge together! Be sure to visit the featured designers and guests participants and see how their rooms are going halfway through the Spring challenge. You can see my posts from Week 1 HERE, Week 2 HERE, and Week 3 HERE. And come back next week for the big bedroom makeover reveal!!