In our last article on the never-ending re-model of our girls' room, we outlned our plan of action on how to get this done in the most efficient and cost-effective way possible.   Efficiency is important because my home projects tend to stretch out over several months...i get the easy stuff done first, and the hardest tasks linger on for weeks as I slowly knock them out one by one.

Our plan was as follows:

Step 1: Decide What to Keep

Step 2: Pull everything out of the room and off the walls

Step 3: Draw up a plan and gather your sample swatches

Step 4: Paint, Wallpaper & Carpeting

Step 5: Mixing In New Furniture With What You Keep

Step 6: Accents and Final Touches

We got through Step 1 with relative ease.  I will post a picture of the repainted bookcase and the other items we kept, including two Wesley Allen beds and a Linwood Furniture dresser.

Step 2 is relatively easy....its just a matter of clearing the room to make it workable.  I should point out that I never actually cleared their room...the dresser and beds were too big to move so I bunched them up in the middle of the room and worked around them.   If I was more efficient, and had more help, I would have moved them into the guest room.   However, I did take everything off the walls, including the equitation-themed wood appliques I applied 8 years ago.     You really do need to start with a blank surface so you know don't have to stop mid-way through your painting or wallpapering to sand down some rough spots.

You also should remove all window treatemtents, curtain rods, mirrors, wall shelves, etc.   You need to start with a totally blank, smooth surface. This means spackling over nail holes and drywall dents, and then sanding them down with an orbital sander once the paste is completely dry.   You should also make sure all dust and cobwebs are cleaned off in the upper corners of the room.   Now you are staring with a true carte blanche, and you can begin to visualize where your paint and wallpaper will go.   This brings us to our next phase of the process....

Step 3:  Draw up a plan and gather your sample swatches.

Step 4: Paint, Wallpaper & Carpeting

We knew we wanted to do something different in the room, and really liked the idea of doing half-wallpaper, half-paint with a nice decorative border in-between.  We decided to hang the wallpaper on top, because of the simple, airy pattern.  The girls had fun choosing the pattern out at Lowes (Home Depot does not stock wallpaper anymore), and they liked the light pink swirls on a white background.   We chose a purple and pink border, and I made up a rose-colored paint by combining some leftover purple pigment with a flat white ceiling paint.  Creating your own pigment is not without risks (mainly, you absolutely need to make sure you have enough to finish the job), but it is cost-effective and can be a lot of fun.

When I told my friends and colleagues I was redecorating my girls' room, and wallpapering was a big part of this, i got some pitiful looks.   Maybe its because they have seen my efforts with retiling our third bathroom (4 years running and its still not done), or maybe its just because hanging wallpaper is much, much harder than it looks.   Probably a little bit of both.

Anyway, before we get deep into that, i wanted to pick up where we left off in the first part of our case study.  We were just getting into the furniture selection and deciding on what to keep and what to toss.

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