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| Goodbye, Cheeky Monkeys |
We specifically built her a room in our house, before we knew she would be ours. It was called the Princess Suite on the design because it had its own en-suite and walk-in wardrobe. Currently it’s known as Pau-Pau’s room. She slept in there for a week while we were painting and she got rather attached to the big bed. Although we considered it, we aren’t quite ready to give it to her yet...
The Brief
From Eloise: A purple Princess room.
From me: One word = SUBTLE. She is not overly-girly so an explosion of pink would not suit. And personally, I don’t love the Disney licensed decoration. I also kept in mind that this could just be a phase and 6 months from now, she would no longer want a Princess room.
So without further adieu, Eloise's new Princess Room!
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| Princess Room |
The Details
We started this makeover with paint. We removed the chair-rail but maintained the half-and-half palette. We thought anything else would make the room look small. Paint color: Taubman’s Cloudy Violet
Eloise’s bed went through a transformation as well. It’s the same bed! We bought her an Ikea bed when she moved from a cot. We wanted something basic and inexpensive as well, children go through phases of interests (coming from someone who went from a racing car bed to a princess day bed to a plain box frame bed!). For this transformation, I found a Queen Anne style bed-head on eBay for $20. The seller had just done the exact same thing but after re-finishing the bed-head, purchased a larger bed for their daughter. Bargain! We also purchased matching bed legs from Bunnings for $5 each. And to match the frame to her newly painted room, I purchased material from the craft store (with my 25% off coupon) and simply stapled the fabric onto the sides. Voila!
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| The bed in progress |
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| The pink bunny resting peacefully on her bed was mine as a child. |
Every Princess needs a Princess Canopy
I love the whimsical feeling for a Princess Canopy. I searched endlessly for a proper bed crown or bed corona but these are $500- $3000. Who knew?! I thought it would be fairly easy to make (it’s just a box, right?) so I delegated it to Mr Build-It (aka Mr H). The lovely eBay seller I purchased the bed-head from sent me a link to an Etsy store she was planning to buy furniture appliques from to embellish the bed-head. I purchased the appliques for the bed crown to give it more “oomph”. We simply glued on the applique and coated the bed corona with paint to match the furniture in her room. Finally, I up-cycled the white curtains already in Eloise’s room by sewing on purple pom-pom trim.
As I re-purposed her curtains for the canopy, I used a few metres of lavender fabric to dress her window.
Play Time!
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Her walls feature her name as Disney Princesses, a gift from Yi-mah and family from their most recent Disney adventures. I also love the trend of using open book shelves to add to the décor of the room. We chose the Disney Princess books and a few of her other favourites, Eloise in Paris (her namesake) and the This Is… series to display.
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| Cinderella, This Little Piggy Went to Prada, Eloise in Paris |
I did hold onto a small part of her old nursery by keeping the shelf with her birth certificate and hospital card, and a frame of her birth announcement and Sophie. Added to it are her mouse ears from her inaugural visit to Disneyland and her tiara from the Bibbidi Bobbidi Boutique.
And finally, a Princess dress-up area was created for playtime. I found a purple mirror marked down from $79.99 to $12.99 at Target and added “Mirror, mirror” using contact paper and very careful cutting. Her Princess dresses were relocated from the closet to the clothing rack I purchased for the Baby & Kids Market (yay! Re-purposed!). Additional props were put into a Nordic Fusion house toy basket I picked up at a boutique market when Eloise was still a baby, located at the foot of her bed.
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| Pocahontas, Cinderella, Snow White, Merida, Mulan, Rapunzel |
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| House toy basket (a little brother's favorite hiding place) |
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| One happy little Princess (Tea set from Disneyland Hong Kong) |
Next up… Eden’s big boy room, then maybe we can work on our own!
