I had quite a few repeat questions from Della’s Big Girl Room Reveal, (yes, I’m slow to answer. Sorry! There were all the kids tugging on me that wanted food and stuff).

So, I thought I would answer them all here, in case some of you folks that didn’t speak up were still hankering to know the answers too.
1. Where is that light from??! (Far and away the most common question).

light
I got it at a Pottery Barn outlet ages ago, before I even had a room to use it in. I paid–get this–$30. (It’s currently selling on the Pottery Barn site for–get this–$199. ON SALE). How did I pull that one off? Read this post to find out.
2. How did you make the framed butterfly art?

butterflies
I’ve never done an official tutorial on this one, but it really doesn’t need one. Basically, I used a butterfly-shaped craft punch (use a 50% coupon at Michael’s, and you can get even the big ones for something like $10…I’ve used mine for multiple projects like this butterfly mobile in Della’s old room and the twins’ butterfly wall) on various sheets of cute scrapbook paper until I had a pretty good pile. I bent the wings of each butterfly slightly so that it would have a bit of dimension, then hot-glued them in rows against a piece of white card stock. I was inserting them into old Goodwill frames with existing matting, and I added a layer of textured white wallpaper to the matting to make it stand out a little more. That step is completely optional, though. After I replaced the matting (I secured it to the card stock backing with a bit of tape), I popped my new easy “art” back in the frames and called it done!

3. How in the world do you keep her bedspread and chair so white?

Honestly, I don’t do anything special, although the ruffly “bedspread” is rarely actually on her bed, since it’s a bit slippery and tends to slide off. So, that stays out of harm’s way (i.e. sticky fingers and markers) most of the time. As for the chair…well, thanks to a painting snafu a few years back, it actually has a haze of oil-based coral paint on parts of it. It’s not super-noticeable unless you look closely, but it’s definitely not in as pristine of condition as it apparently appears in the pictures.

4. About that bedspread, how did you make it again?

I totally didn’t “make” anything about the bedspread. I had plans of actually sewing the ruffles onto the quilt, but laziness/busyness got the better of me, which means it really, truly is just a shower curtain laid over top of a white quilt. Works for me!

5. What is this ginormous bed you speak of?

I realize it was probably hard to picture a bed big enough for all three little girls that makes sense in a room this small. Shaun was planning to make a custom bed for the space, but then we found this twin over full bunk bed with a trundle.

It was a pretty big splurge, but considering that it’s essentially 3 beds in one, works really well in the space, has great reviews (which, hopefully, means that it will last a long time), was at least $1,000 cheaper than any comparable name-brand options, and saves my husband a lot of work (not to mention the fact that the materials for making/painting the bed we had in mind weren’t exactly going to be cheap), and had FREE shipping, we decided to bite the bullet and invest in something all of the girls could use for a long time. (We also got it for about $100 cheaper than the listed price, thanks to some discounts, so that was nice).

6. WHERE are all the toys/little girl clutter?

toys

First up, I have to emphasize that Della’s room is never super-tidy when I haven’t just pulled a full-on Mary Poppins on it. Still, the truth is that she doesn’t have tons of toys in her room. We have two bins full of random toys downstairs in the living room and tons of toy storage in our “big room”/schoolroom upstairs, so my kids’ rooms are (somewhat) toy-free (not that you would guess that from the Lego graveyard that usually litters the boys’ floor). She does have a dress-up basket in her closet and a bin full of stuffed animals in her room (not to mention the constant collection of random bits and bobs that end up stuffed in the top part of the secretary desk that holds her non-hanging clothes).

7. How in the world did you have time to do all of this?

Honestly, considering that I pointed out that it took me almost 3 years to get this room finished, I’m surprised that anyone was still wondering this. Because the short answer is that I get it done, one project at a time, veeeeeerrrrry slooooooowly.

But then again, on the day that I finally got everything finished up, I spray-painted four different things, hung multiple pieces of art (with Shaun’s help…AKA, he did almost all of it), rearranged, cleaned, fluffed, and shot pictures. And all of that within the space of about 4 hours.

How did I manage it? Well, my kids were all at my mom’s, so I wasn’t trying to do 41 different things at once. I was a little amazed at how much I could accomplish without constant distractions. Don’t get me wrong: I wouldn’t trade my sweet little “distractions” for an infinite number of finished rooms. But having that dedicated time definitely made a difference in my productivity levels.

So, if you’re feeling like you should be doing “room reveals” or finishing things up more often with kids around, please be assured that I don’t. Not really. I plug along getting some things done, but without that dedicated kid-free time, I don’t know if you would have ever seen Della’s room.

And that’s the straight-up truth, folks.

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I think that mostly answers the big questions. Feel free to add to the list if you have any more, though. Oh, and thanks for the encouragement to keep her chair! I’m going to try to find a place for it (that bed really does kind of swallow the room whole, though).

9 Comments

  1. Beautiful room! Appreciate the details. I especially love #7. Thanks for keeping it real. We have our twin boys (and will eventually move in little brother) in a full on bottom twin on top bunk bed and it has been fabulous. As a bonus with 8 of us in our 4 bedroom house the full on bottom can be a guest bed at times since we don’t have a dedicated guest room. Had to give up a little floor space but it has been worth it.

  2. Don’t you need to change your comment asking for comments since you actually have 6 kids now, right? 😉

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