You are here

OT - teen girls' bedroom

secret's picture

I've been slowly redecorating my daughters' room for the last little while...

I had painted it blues and purples last year, and they've grown tired of it. I agree though, it's a bit childish for them... it's what they wanted at the time, it's just not "cool" anymore.

Anyway, I've already re-painted the walls white.

I've bought a twin bed for my oldest girl - she had a queen bed my youngest had a twin bed... and with the dressers, vanity and armoire in the room, it was a wee bit cramped.... so now they both have twin beds.

Anyone re-finish dressers etc? They're currently painted in melamine, a deep forest green... they want them "wood" colored... I'm thinking at this point mactack would be my best bet lol

Anyone decorate a room for 2 girls? did you keep one theme, or random throughout? They seem to both be stuck on the white & black theme with a little color... which I'm ok with... but they can't agree on a color, and they don't want animal print.

Comments

Acratopotes's picture

oh dear..... I never ever decorated a room a child wanted, my standard answer was... sorry no.... you can buy your own house and paint it what ever color you like, they only had a say in what color curtains.... and bedding, nothing else..

Aergia choose blue and after a year she hated it, I simply laughed and said tuff, you will have a blue room till you leave the day (see she convinced Daddy to paint the walls blue behind my back which he did)

Deigma asked for white walls, but he wanted RED curtains with black bedding... I had no problem doing it, when we moved out Aergia wanted to take over his room and I said NO.. heck I pay for half the house, his room got turned into a spare bedroom and SO supported me on this.

Now your furniture is not clear, if it's melamine furniture, you will struggle getting it painted like wood, dark green is not easy to cover up,
primer is light white and it's difficult to paint it like wood... I would leave it that color and tell them NO, decorate it around the dressers...

you can do it very very classy with the white walls now, you can use shades of white and grey on beds, even black and white.... look at zen rooms a bit, on the dresses a nice holly bamboo.... it's totally different but very mature

secret's picture

The furniture is solid wood, but it's been painted with dark green melamine paint. (not by me)

I "take suggestions" for bedrooms - my son wanted his room painted red and black... no way. It's a tan color, with some painted shapes in deep red on one wall. I painted the baseboards and frames black. Black and gray furniture, red bedding.. black shelving.. installed some blacklights and some old velvet posters I had which do glow in the blacklight. Pretty creepy stuff.

I don't mind color... I just mind doing up a room I wouldn't be able to "fix" later on.

Acratopotes's picture

oh solid wood.... no problem them lol....

the girls wants it changed they can do it,

paint remover, sander and stainer..... let them work for it. (I am way to lazy to wait for paint remover I use a burner to burn of old oil base paints and a scraper... sometimes the burning stains here and there but it looks better when stained, gives it an old look)

I almost thought secret was getting soft on me Wink

AshMar654's picture

Let them each pick a color. Use pillows and pictures and bedding to give them the color they each want and do everything else like the black and white. I know it may look a little odd but hey it is easy to fix down the road.

I have redone a a tv hutch and a clothes hutch. Both were stained and coated and I painted them. I had to sand them down especially the first one as i was going form a really dark stain to a cream color.

You will have to strip the existing paint off to see what is under it. It may be stained and depending on that color will depend on the stain you will need after that. They make like a black stain that is pretty nice. It is a project to re-do all of that. Go to lowes and find a middle paint stripper you may have to apply and scrap a few times.

Best of luck.

secret's picture

Yeah, it will be one heck of a project.

They have a large 8 foot mirrored dresser with 8 drawers (4 on each side), a smaller (4 ft wide) upright dresser with 6 drawers, an armoire which is 5 feet high and 3 feet wide, and a vanity desk/poof all done up with this craptastic melamine paint.

They'd been painted a few times before, but they are solid wood underneath. The furniture in question was my mother's when she was young.

AshMar654's picture

Your best bet is to get a really good stripping agent. I used goo off form lowed to get the clear epoxy coat off the the bathroom vanity I redid for our main bathroom. I used what was originally there to save some money but I had to get the top clear coat off so that the paint I was using would adhere not easily chip away. I used the goo off with a really good plastic scraper, you can use metal just be careful one you put the stripper on it make the wood soft until it it dries out again so you can make small dents. I also used a steel wool sponge for the crevice areas that I could not get a scrapper to do well.

Hope that helps best of luck.

lieutenant_dad's picture

Take them shopping in the "dorm" section of Target or a Canadian-equivalent store. The dorm or college section has a lot of basic colors that match black and white (since dorms here are very bland), and the stuff is cheap. There tend to be a lot of similar patterns in different colors, so you may be able to pick a themed desk/chair/comforter/pillows but each get their own color. Plus, if they don't destroy it, they can take it to college (actually, I would make it a requirement that it doesn't get destroyed so that it HAS to go to college).

I wouldn't put too much effort into this, though. In 5 years as a teen living with my parents, I floated from Lizzie McGuire pinks and purples with sparkles and crazy designs to overly religious where I wanted muted, conservative colors to Avril Lavigne punk with crazy animal and bright skull prints on white and plaid overlays to super goth where everything was black, red, or another depressingly dark shade of any color (god forbid I be seen in any color brighter than blood red). If my parents tried to keep my room up with my changing tastes, they would have spent a small fortune. I think it's perfectly fine to paint the walls white, keep their dresser whatever color it is, and let them accessorize their beds and walls on a budget. If you don't offer the Hilton, they'll be fine with the Hampton.

secret's picture

I told them they're fairly unlimited in terms of what they wanted as long as it's not too damaging to the walls etc, but that they each have a budget.

The little one has bought solar powered fairy lights with hers so far. Beee

mommadukes2015's picture

Have them both make Pinterest boards and pin anything they like on pinterest to the board. Usually you'll see they tend to develop a "style" a color, you'll see the same or similar things throughout and you base your color/décor choices on the stuff on the board. That is how I did my whole house.

secret's picture

Ya know... I've SEEN pinterest... but I've never really used it.

I'll check it out, thanks. Smile

LostinSpaceandTime's picture

That is a lot of furniture to refinish. As it was your mothers if you plan to keep it then make it the way you want it. Then use it in the guest room in the future. Or if you have a guest room now switch it over and get each girl a IKEA type closet unit that will hold all their clothes in one unit.

I have a small dresser that was my moms that I refinished years ago. I totally sanded all the old finish off. I hate using chemical strippers.

You could paint over the green to do a faux wood grain finish with the faux wood graining tool. But with that much furniture I would not want to take it on.
Can you find a local refinish shop and get an estimate to have it done?

When my daughter was a pre teen she wanted her room done with blue walls with clouds all over. I thought great, I can do beautiful clouds. We got started on it and she wanted clouds that looked like a print on pjs. Not wispy natural looking clouds. I gave her what she wanted and the room stayed that way til she was grown up and I sold the house. It was an improvement over the old wallpaper at least.

secret's picture

To be honest I'm hoping that DH does the sanding lol }:) }:)

Not that I'm TRYING to be manipulative, but I let DH convert my garage into a nice big man cave (along with my second living room into an entertainment/bar room, AND a large room in my basement into a home gym...)... and I KNOW that if I take too long with the furniture in the garage, DH will get tired of seeing it in the space and will take care of it. heh heh

We've got a couple couches out there with a coffee table and a tv... so.... I foresee DH sanding it for me on a weekend afternoon instead of letting me go at my own pace of an hour here and there... haha

Cover1W's picture

Unless it's a very good dresser, it'll be very difficult to remove the green, or cover it well (I painted a lovely dresser blue then regretted it - refinished it and there's still blue in it. And it took FOREVER.).

Option: Paint it white or black if they want that theme.
Or, find a dresser that's wood on Craigslist or at the Thriftstore or garage sale. Then donate the green one.

Livingoutloud's picture

How old are your DDs? Are they very young or plan to live with you in adulthood? I am not sure I’d spend that much energy on all this if they are leaving soon. I had nice bedroom furniture set for DD in her bedroom but wouldn’t go crazy repainting things. She left for college right after high school and never lived home again (she of course visits). Unless DDs are little girls, I’d think about how long are they planning to live at home?

secret's picture

They're 12 and 14, so another 4 / 5 years... maybe more IF they're productive in school and working part time, not slobs etc... out at 18 if they want to be adults and be their own person not mindful of my rules in my home...

I don't mind painting - I actually enjoy redecorating, so it's not really an issue.

I had the day off yesterday so I took down the old bed, set up the new bed, deep cleaned the carpet, emptied out the armoire...

then I cleaned out a shelving unit I had downstairs, moved it upstairs, and moved furniture around.

I think I'm going to scrap the armoire and the upright dresser, just keep the large mirrored dresser and vanity.

There's currently no closet doors, since the armoire in is in the closet and there are shelves on the other side, but I think I'm going to put the closet doors back on.

I started looking at bedding / curtains / other decor online yesterday, and they both seem ok with various greys - so I think I' going to keep the walls white, do the bedding and curtaings grey, sand then stain the furniture greyish. I've already bought cheap random black frames, some will have picture sin them, some will just have a wire with a clip, some will have cork... I'm also going to buy some vinyl lettering to put sayings they want (their request) and put up the fairly lights they have.

They still haven't settled on colors, so I will jujst pick up what I think will look best and they can suck it. lol