A room of her own

For months, no years, Ava has been asking and wishing to have her room painted and decorated in her colors of choice. Since we rent this house, I've always quietly dismissed the idea as not worth the effort/money because we are *supposedly* moving soon. Well, after 3+ years living here that excuse is getting old. We had been hoping to buy our own home for many years (um, since we moved to this area 5 1/2 years ago), but that is another long, drawn out story to save for another day.

I do keenly remember being Ava's age and really wanting my room to be a certain way, but that was never a possibility growing up in such a large family. So to get to the point of this little story, a few weeks ago I decided I would finally go for it and redo my sweet girl's room. The hitch was, I wanted it to be a total surprise and also to cost less than $50. I love the cheapskate challenge!

For the last couple weeks I have been stealthily gathering the supplies and secretly getting ideas from Ava about how she would like her room "if" we could paint it. Her colors of choice? Hot pink and light green.

My first goal was to find some bed linens in pink, but oh no, not light pink. Apparently Ava HATES light pink! No easy task, I must say. Four stores later, I hit upon some hot pink 100% cotton (a must in my opinion) jersey sheets (Target $20). I quickly realized I was not going to be able to buy a comforter and still stay in my price range, so I went to Joann's fabric store to get fabric for making a duvet cover ($15). From stash fabric I sewed simple muslin curtain panels,made a few fuchsia colored cloth lampshade covers, and covered a cork board with some hot pink fabric.

Then off I went to the paint store. Our local store has a whole selection of Benjamin Moore paint "goofs" ranging in price from $1-$4. They call them "goof gals" (as in gallons) and a"goof gal" is exactly what I felt like as I picked up some yellow, white and blue for mixing up into a gallon of green.

Next up, arranging a sleepover for Ava and getting a helper for me- my kind sister Lea (thank you!) . So on Saturday night, Ava went off to her friend's house for a sleepover and Lea came over ready to paint. With Lea around, the paint job was painless, quick and I daresay fun. We moved around the existing furniture and dressed the bed and windows with the new fabrics. I finally went to bed at 3am exhausted, but anxiously awaiting Ava's return home and her reaction in a few hours.

Though the colors are loud and the room offbeat, I think Ava was pretty thrilled when she came home to find her room totally made over. I'm so happy we pulled it off.