Elephants!

This room was already painted. The little girl just wanted some elephants and a small color change. I'll post the accessories on a later post.

Pink, pink and Zebra = Girly Room!

Generally speaking, my clients don't employ the services of a decorator. One of my favorite things about what I do is the brainstorming process. If the client has already selected bedding for the space, it's usually smooth sailing. It wasn't exactly a giant leap to figure out how this room would be painted. The previous owners of this house had already installed the border trim, so after a coat of primer to cover the dark blue and dark green paint on the walls, we simply color matched the two pinks from the comforter.

I spray painted the iron bed black. The side table is from IKEA. To make the zebra print on the top, I covered it with clear contact paper, drew the zebra stripes with a sharpie, cut out every other stripe with an exacto knife, then spray painted it white. When I removed the remaining contact paper -- presto! Zebra top table!

I did not want to paint the furniture. It was beautiful, high quality oak furniture in perfect condition. But in the end, the girl needed furniture, the client was downsizing to a smaller house, and it actually turned out much better than I expected. Since this was one of several projects I was working on for this particular client, and she wanted it all finished before she moved in, I subcontracted out the painting of the furniture to a friend. He was more appauled at the thought of painting it black than I was, but he did it. He was a life saver! The drawer pulls were originally brass, but I've found this amazing little product called "Rub-n-Buff" that I used for the new patina.

The last little project to finish with this room were some zebra stripes painted on some white, Pottery Barn letters:

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I Wanna be a Cowgirl!

I really regret not taking pictures of the little girl's room that I made all these pieces for. But it was really cute. The wall color is similar to what you see in the first picture, and color scheme in all the pieces were inspired by a bedding collection from Target, which unfortunately is no longer available.

Whenever I go to a craft store, one of the first things I do is rummage through the clearance aisle, which is where I found this little metal sign (unfinished). I think I paid about 35 cents for it. The client didn't ask for it, but she really liked it, and it was an easy little project.


This is a large canvas to hang over the bed. Very simple design. The most time consuming part of the entire project was hand painting all the paisley designs.


The boots were cut out of MDF (medium density fiberboard) that was left over after making the mirror frames.

I wish the quality of the pictures were better for these mirrors. I was really pleased with how they turned out, and the client was thrilled. If you attempt a project like this, make sure you use a strong bonding agent to adhere the mirrors to the MDF and use mirror clips for extra support - especially if it's something that will go in a child's room. The rope trim was purchased at a home improvement store and hot glued onto the edges. You definitely want to line the rope up exactly where it needs to go before you bust out the old glue gun. Once it's on there, it's on there!

This stool was sitting in the girl's closet. It was originally a different shade of pink and was in pretty sad shape. The designs were taken directly from the bedding. I love the rope as a decorative touch, but it also serves to reinforce the stability of the stool. The client handed the stool almost as an afterthought, asking if I could do anything with it. It's probably my favorite piece of the entire project. When painting furniture for kids, make sure to apply several coats of water based sealer. The water based is safer than traditional coatings, and it will preserve your hard work.