“Have nothing in your houses that you do not know to be useful or believe to be beautiful.” – William Morris
I had always imagined my girls room with charming wallpaper and fun prints but I had to wait until they stopped writing on the walls and putting stickers up as decor. I had saved tons of Instagram posts for inspiration and made slides with different wallpapers and curtains, so by the time we got around to pulling the trigger for buying materials I had five or so mock up plans. First, I needed to figure out how much wallpaper we needed. You can plug your numbers into a wallpaper calculator you can find online. There are several of them. Once I found my numbers, I realized my number one choice of wallpaper just wouldn’t be in budget. I did my best to scour websites for similar, more cost affordable but I just couldn’t shake the thought that they wouldn’t look as good or would be of lower quality. We also realized for the wallpaper to fully adhere and last, we would need to skim our walls, sand, and prime before putting the wallpaper up since we had a lot of texture on our walls. So that was also an additional cost ($1500).
The Wallpaper
I was deciding between some vintage wallpapers I found on Etsy and elsewhere when I came across a lot of 5 rolls of Colefax and Fowler, Grayshott in pink for $350 on eBay. It wasn’t my first choice in design, but I knew Colefax and Fowler is high quality wallpaper designed in England! English charm was one of my mood words when coming up with ideas for the girls room. It was even enough yardage to cover the room, and it was a steal of a deal. So I went for it.
Left: Picture of wallpaper from website. Right: Actual wallpaper in the girls’ room.
How to Enhance Wallpaper
Now, I definitely knew we needed to get someone who had experience with wallpaper to put this up since I did not want to ruin it and couldn’t ask my husband because I wanted to stay married. The installers did accidentally put a bed canopy in the wrong spot and had to remove it so we do have a couple of unfortunate holes, but fortunately no one can see them as they are behind the curtain rod. We just took a big, deep breath and we were just glad it was done.
I put different mood boards together on Google Slides and tried to envision which patterns of curtains and bed coverings would go with the wallpaper and the dresser we already had. Again, I decided to go with a buffalo check in pink for the canopy curtains. I think a mix of floral and geometric patterns go well together, and so my next search became looking for the right shade of pink and it took a few tries to find a good one.
Optimizing the Blinds
The one I wanted was again, beautiful but out of our budget. I ended up getting VHC Brands–Annie Buffalo Check Farmhouse in pink off Amazon. I thought the back of the canopy would look nice with more of a sheer white curtain. Since the package came with two panels, I used one panel for the back of each canopy.
Now, the canopy. I looked all over for some sort of bed canopy and even checked out Lowes to see if I could make it myself. It was all out of my wheelhouse. So I bought this DIY bed crown kit from Etsy. Easy to install and then I could slip the curtains over the clear acrylic piece. I wanted the crown to start at the same place as the window curtains. I thought about lowering the crown so the crown curtains could hang to the floor, but then it felt too uneven. So, I opted for shorter curtains. If I could, I would have had curtains that were longer and went to the floor, but there were none in that length.
We Decided On a Canopy
And I already had returned so many curtains that were too sheer, bad quality, or completely the wrong shade of pink. I still dream about adding length to the girls curtains because I have an extra set…maybe one day. For window curtains I added curtains with a light pink stripe (it doesn’t seem to be available in pink currently). Again, the geometric contrast with the floral pattern really stood out to me.
Let’s Talk Rugs
I was so inspired by the Indian pattern and color influences in English design that I wanted the bed coverings to have some sort of block print. The melding influences of cultures on each other even when things in history were not necessarily good, is definitely a good that came out of it. I almost bought a quilt from an Indian Instagram account that had no online shop, but I backed myself out of that. Finally, I found a similar one on Etsy and a tiny floral print ruffled pillow case as well that matched the print on the girls’ bathroom lamp shade, so I knew it was the one!
I had my eye on a rug recommended by Swedish designer Beata Heuman that was an affordable rug from La Redoute. Unfortunately, it was too big to ship to the US even though the item on the website said it could be shipped. I tried my darndest to get it, used a third party shipping service, and in the end it just didn’t work out.
Other Rugs
I was disappointed. I came across a sort of similar rug by Arvin Olano and hoped it would work. As such, I was actually delighted with the quality and it works so well in the room. A little pop of red helps make the room sing.
We added plug in bedside sconces that were dimmable and maybe one day we will sew lampshade covers on them, but for now they work just fine and are a huge step up from the girls crowding around the tiny light from their sound machine to read and write at night.
The Dresser and Desk
As for the dresser and desk, I got them from Facebook Marketplace. I sanded and stripped the dresser (not a job I would want to do again to be honest) and added the milk white large knobs. The wavy mirror was an Amazon purchase and was much sturdier than I expected. I still have a few wall hangings I wanted to put up but we haven’t found the perfect place and too nervous to add holes to the wallpaper. The girls often comment on how beautiful it is and how they can “stare at it forever.” It was not an elixir to make the room stay tidy and things put away, but hey if there’s beauty in there at least there’s inner fuel to press on when mom calls out, “Time to clean your room!”
