Office For Daddy Becomes a Room Fit For His Little Princess

 

One of my current jobs has been to transform a traditional looking stained, paneled, manly office into a sweet, precious little girlie room for an adorable little one year old girl. 

Tight on bedroom space, with three bedrooms upstairs filled with the older kids, it was time to make some changes downstairs and accommodate the new addition to the family.  The only room that made any sense was dad’s office space.

But, as you can see it wasn’t exactly a space fit for a princess….and that’s what I envisioned for their little cutie:  A pretty, little girlie room with a princess theme.  Certainly not dark paneled walls with a serious office theme.

I was pleasantly surprised when they, even dad, said paint was fine.  (Men tend to HATE painting over stained wood!)  And not only that, they wanted nothing ordinary, but something special and unique, for their special little girl.

Well, those kind of words are music to my ears…..so that exactly what we did.

I drew up a quickie sketch with a princess theme…..

Then I sketched up some valance designs I wanted to have custom-made by my wood maker and custom-painted in a playful design by the artist who would be doing the walls  –  just for the little princess.

I  chose Sherwin Williams Biscuit as the base coat and these Sherwin Williams colors – Hearts of Palm and Vivacious Pink as my accent colors.

I showed them the fabrics I wanted to use to match the existing retail bedding she had already purchased.  A pink satin for the windows and a sparkly pink organza for the either crib or dresser.  Once all the plans were approved we began the process of transformation.

While the drapes and valances were being made I had the entire room painted Sherwin Williams Biscuit.

All but the ceiling, because I wanted it to have a blue sky and clouds eventually.

Billy, the talented artist, put his crew to work masking off the harlequin shapes.

And, he doodled out some curly-q’s I decided to add to the bottom panels.  I let the artist in him do “his thing” and he drew these on free hand first.

Which ended up looking like this.

And this.

With the harlequins they looked like this.

He added green harlequins to the cabinet door fronts.

They added these adorable, fluffy clouds and this blue sky.

When all the artwork was done he went over it with a glaze to give it an old, aged, “castle feel”.

And the end result was this…

And this.  

Last, but not least, I asked for a custom painting incorporating the harlequins and her name to hang on the center wall of her cabinets.  Billy created this adorable plaque.  Isn’t it sweet? 

A far cry from a stuffy, serious office, wouldn’t you say?   It’s still a work in progress.  We need to paint the dresser, switch out the blinds, add the sconces, the upholstered furniture, the chandelier, etc.  But, we are doing it in stages so it will be a while before we are completely finished. 

I hope you’re inspired now to tackle your own little princess’s room! 

Happy Decorating!