Before and After: A Bland Kid’s Bedroom Gets a Whopping Dose of Color and Personality
It’s a big milestone, going from a crib to a big-kid bed, and it’s often a design milestone, too — not to mention, a great reason for parents to give their kiddo’s room a revamp. When Oreoluwa Oderanti’s (of Inspired Ore Home Decor) youngest child grew out of their crib, it sparked an entire overhaul of the once-“dark and cluttered” space.
“Clothes where everywhere despite trying to find ways to make the kids room clean,” Oreoluwa explains of the before. “Their toys where always everywhere, and they barely had a space to play that they loved to go to. Our kids also love playing in a ‘make-believe tent,’ so they would tie up pieces of bedsheets to the bunk bed and the crib to play.”
During the One Room Challenge, Oreoluwa took out the crib and created a colorful, clutter-free, creative kid’s room. It started with a decluttering; from there, Oreoluwa moved on to the “ugly popcorn ceilings.” Skim-coating them for a smooth finish took two coats and a few weeks to finish.
“By the time I was done, I had back pains and was really tired but continued to push through,”Oreoluwa says. “I then had to sand, paint, and then patch up some spots again because I wanted the ceiling to be as smooth as possible with the high-gloss look I was going for.”
The work paid off when Oreoluwa painted the ceiling in a dreamy light blue (Sherwin-Williams’ Swimming), which she also used on most of the walls of the bedroom.
On the other side of the room where the bunk bed is, Oreoluwu created a focal point using rainbow wallpaper on two adjoining walls.
“Next thing I did was paint the doors and window trim using Sherwin-Williams’ Grenadine and then painted the bunk bed in Sherwin-Williams’ Blue Iris,” Oreoluwa says. “This took a long time — about five hours — since I had to get into all the corners using a paint brush and roller.” She then moved onto painting the dresser (Sherwin-Williams’ Chartreuse), also revamped with new knobs, and then she installed the jungle-print Roman shades.
“I also bought fabric and bench foam to make a bench cushion, which I installed on the new toy storage I got for the kid’s room to create a cozy and playful nook they can hang out in,” Oreoluwa adds.
One of Oreoluwa’s tips for bringing harmony to a room like this that employs lots of paint colors? Choose one piece in the room on which you use every color. (It can be small or large, depending on how vibrant you want things to be!) In the case of Oreoluwa’s kiddos’ room, it was the wardrobe, where each drawer has a different tone; it also has large white doors to balance out the many colors.
“Once all the heavy lifting was done, I accessorized with other decor such as the pillows, the gallery wall, plants, and lighting,” Oreoluwa says.
But her favorite part of the redo remains the very first part she worked on: the glossy blue ceiling. “I am so glad about how it turned out,” she says. “I love the reflection it gives, bouncing light around the room, reflecting the rainbow wallpaper and just creating a rhythm throughout the space.”
Oreoluwa’s goals for this makeover were to maximize the square footage she had to work with, brighten the room with paint, add functionality through meaningful but playful storage that can grow with her kiddos, to create a play area to spark creativity, and personality-infused decor and art, and create an all-around welcoming, colorful, cozy space the kids can call their own.
She certainly excelled on all accounts! “This room is completely colorful, inspiring, playful, cozy, calm, clean and most importantly, filled with love,” she says.
This project was completed for the Fall 2022 One Room Challenge, in partnership with Apartment Therapy. See even more of the One Room Challenge before and afters here.
Inspired? Submit your own project here.