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Come and see my daughter’s Tween bedroom makeover! It’s a style we like to call Boho Sunshine and it’s a fun way to transition from a little girl room to a room that can continue to grow with her.
Last year, we began a renovation on our children’s bedrooms to give them a glow up. As my kids have started getting older, I just wanted to make sure their bedrooms really felt like their space. I’m going to start by sharing my daughter’s tween bedroom makeover with you because I’m thrilled to say it is 100 percent complete…finally.
I’m a big fan of letting kids have a say in what their rooms look like. Often I wonder about some of the kids’ rooms I see on Instagram and wonder if the kids have had any say in determining what they would look like. A nursery is obviously mostly planned by mom or the parents. However, once a child starts to talk and developed a personality, I believe it’s important to let them express themselves through their space – especially if they have their own room.
Removing the lofts
Over the summer we started removing some lofts from the kids’ bedrooms with a plan to completely let them pick out the details for their spaces. The lofts had been put in by the previous owner and while they were cute, and definitely a unique feature, they weren’t very functional. You couldn’t really fit any toys up there, the ladder came down straight in the center of the rooms and they closed in the space. Additionally, my kids never used them because they were too afraid they were going to fall out with lack of a door. So, we said goodbye to the lofts with a plan to redo each of their bedrooms. I’d love to show you nice before photo with the lofts in there but apparently I don’t have any because I’m awful at taking before and after shots. So, here’s a few stills from a video I took once we had already moved all her stuff out instead. (Sorry!)
Rules for the rooms
Keira is 10 now and will soon be 11. Turning double digits has come with a big personality. Sometimes she’s complete sunshine and other times she’s a bundle of attitude wrapped in a tiny package. She’s wanted to change her room for at least a year now and this seemed like the perfect time for a tween bedroom makeover.
I have two rules for my kids whenever we do things to their rooms or buy things for their rooms.
- No character rooms/items. Frankly, my children ebb and flow between fads like the wind and I’m not going to be changing the look of their rooms each time it blows in a different direction.
- They can do what they want, within reason. For example, last year my daughter wanted to paint her room all black. I know black is in right now but I vetoed that. An accent wall? Sure. A dark, moody blue. Ok. All black so it looks like a cave before we hit the anxious, difficult, confusing teen years? Absolutely not.
Curating a Tween Bedroom Makeover style
This year, she seemed to want a different feeling altogether. She said she wanted white, linen colors and was gravitating toward straight lines for furniture. In fact, when we picked out school backpacks, lunch bags and shoes she picked out all white for all of those things. She told me it was her, “aesthetic.” 🙂
Eventually, Keira settled on a look for her tween bedroom makeover that I would call Boho Sunshine. We started with looking for decals and even wallpaper to help inspire her. When we found the boho sunshine decals, she knew that was the look and color she wanted. So we started there and ran with it. She loved the idea of having yellow as a main color in the room, which really surprised me based on her wants last year. But she also still wanted to pull in some of the more sophisticated straight lines, linens, touches of gold and colors of wood that Boho style would include. Overall, she is a pretty happy, intelligent kid so her tween bedroom makeover became a reflection of that and the space is a pretty bit of sunshine.
What we did
Besides expanding her closet and removing the loft, we also added board and batten, which helped me to feel like the sunshine decals weren’t overtaking the room. Because she wanted most of the space light an airy, white because the perfect background color and the board and batten provided a little charm like you might see in a house that’s as old as our’s is.
We also bought more new items for this makeover than I normally would. She got a new bed, but the bet she had was a metal, white IKEA bed she had had since she was 3. She got a new desk and desk chair that fit her style too. Her old ones had actually been mine when I was a kid and while I would love if she were a vintage loving girl, she prefers a more modern take. There were certain things she’s been collecting for awhile like the bean bag she got for Christmas or the hamper she had gotten for her birthday.
Simple things
We also did simple things like removing the blinds and adding curtains. Her dresser is the same one she’s had since she was born but to give it a tween bedroom makeover we switched out the knobs for some new gold ones. We also added in some faux plants to bring the outside in, which is typical with Boho style. When I know she can be responsible for them, we will switch them out to real plants. Lastly, she was also in charge of some of the details. She decided to organize her books on her book shelf by color and picked out the baskets for storage on there as well as some of the vases and accessories around the room.
New mattress
Lastly, we upgraded her actual mattress. She had the worst one in the house. It was one we bought from a furniture store in 2004 and it was awful! I had an organic topper but she still needed a new bed. Luckily, Allswell {HERE}, gifted us a mattress for the space as well as the duvet and duvet cover. I have to say, they are AMAZING. The mattresses do come in a box so I was super skeptical because I’ve done that before for our room and our mattress is just awful. Now though, she has the best room in the house. The Duvet is amazing too and we got one for my son’s room. You can find it {HERE}. I also want that for our room now too. It’s better than the one we have from Pottery Barn.
Sunshine decals
On three walls in the room we added the sunshine decals for her tween bedroom makeover. These aren’t wallpaper. They’re individual decals that I measured out to create the pattern on the wall. You can find them {HERE}. If you are wanting to do something similar, I will tell you this was easier than the peel and stick wallpaper we did in my son’s room {HERE}. But here’s a few tips:
- Measure with a rule – I determined a spacing based on the bottom row. I measure it out with a ruler and went from there so there would at least be the illusion that everything lined up like a wallpaper.
- Let go of perfection – I put this project off for weeks because the idea of not placing the sunshines perfectly was giving me anxiety. Once I let it go, I realized I could get a perfect look without my spacing being exactly perfect. More than likely you will have uneven walls, uneven ceilings and in my case, a window in the way that I didn’t account for originally. With some slight half inch movements, I was able to get things to line up pretty well. I’m happy with it now and in looking at it, I don’t think anyone would be able to tell that the measurements aren’t perfect.
The yellow wall
When Keira told me she wanted the fourth wall in her bedroom to be the same color as the suns, I had to take a deep breath. It made sense, but those suns are like traffic yellow. They look good in small doses but I wasn’t sure how the whole wall would look. This color was the most difficult part of the whole room. I used a Behr paint since they have a good color match system, but I really find that their paint does not work well for dark colors. This wall took 7 coats to get it to look like this. I was so frustrated with it at one point I walked away from it for two weeks.
Other Boho Sunshine room elements
There were a lot of things that we bought new for her Tween Bedroom Makeover. Most of the items were under the guide of “birthday presents” like her new bed. But still, there was a lot more purchased for the space than I would if I had been doing a renovation on say my room. In order to really create the look she was going for, some of these pieces felt really important. You can find most of them by clicking the images below.
Bookshelf Closet
Since we took the unused lofts away, I thought it would be fun to add another unique element to the kids’ rooms. I saw Murphy doors on instagram a few years ago and decided to make both kids’ closet doors into hidden door bookshelves. In Keira’s room, we had to do some construction on the closet because the loft sat on top of it. Since we were tearing a part the closet anyways, I decided to extend it to give her more space and we gave her an extra large bookshelf door. I will do a full review on the Murphy Doors in another post, but I will say instead of buying from them again, I would probably build this on our own. It’s a really fun element and the kids love it, but I’ll tell you more in the full review maybe next month.
Looking for other home decor ideas?
If you’re looking for other home decor and home makeover ideas, check out these posts
- Limewash Fireplace Makeover {HERE}
- Peel & Stick Wallpaper Tips {HERE}
- Wine Cellar Under the Stairs {HERE}
- Farmhouse Neutral Bedroom Makeover {HERE}
- Mudroom Renovation {HERE}
- Patio Makeover and Decor Ideas {HERE}
So what do you think of her Tween Bedroom Makeover? Is it a room you would have loved when you were a tween? I know I would have. She’s already had tons of sleepovers since we’ve redone it and I hope it’s a room that at least will see her through middle school…because I’m not repainting that wall one more time. 🙂
If you have any questions of comments on the room please let me know below! Have a good day friends and thank you so much for coming by! I hope that you visit again!
I love how it turned out. My daughter has too much crap. She wants to redo it but she gets attached to things so it’s hard to make her room pretty.
This turned out well. I love the color choices.
My son wanted all black too. I vetoed it as well and suggested an accent wall too. I still haven’t gotten around to painting and I can’t wait.
Wow! This is so perfect I really love how it turned out!
The color choices here are really perfect! I love how this turns out
You just gave me some ideas for my daughter’s room! I love those yellow suns on the walls!
Your tips and tricks are beneficial, thanks for sharing them! Having all this information is very helpful to me
You did a great job. I really do like the bright airy look. I really love the bookshelf closet idea it fits in well, it’s an essential and looks great too!
The room turned out perfect. It is so beautiful and looks refreshing as well. Thanks for sharing!
It turned out amazing. I love the look and refreshing too. Thanks for sharing this with us.