Our Rainbow Unicorn Bedroom Makeover

Ahh, I love room reveals, don't you?

So let's get right to it:

We did this Princess Elena room for our friends back in 2018, but little Ellie was ready for a new theme. Her favorite thing now is UNICORNS, so I was happy to go all-in.

And here it is finished!

::trumpet fanfare::

We kept the existing wall paint since it's only a few years old, and just covered up the flowers we painted last time:

On to newer and more rainbow-y things.

We used the new bedspread as a color guide, and bought sample-sizes of these three colors for the rainbow:

This toy elephant seemed to approve:

Here's the view from the door:

Ellie asked us to move her bed this way, because she likes sleeping against the wall. Her parents weren't a fan at first, but I think we made it work - and now I like it better than before!

Since Ellie never used her nightstand - except as a place for her bedside lamp to read by - we slid that into the closet and installed a wall lamp over the headboard instead:



I love how well the wall decals match the bedspread. Those two items are what I based the rest of the room around.



Ellie loves to read, and as we were getting started she mentioned how much she wished she had a little place to "crawl inside and read." You should have seen my eyes light up. "We can do that." :D

Which is how we ended up with her sweet little reading canopy:

It looks so magical at night, too.  Hang on, I'll show you in a minute.

Major shout-out to John for bringing this rainbow to life. The clouds were all his idea (they're foam board stuck up with poster tack!), plus he photoshopped the whole thing together to help me visualize where the stars & name should go.

(Fun/annoying fact about me: I can't visualize at all. Mostly I can't picture things in 3D, but even 2D can give me trouble. I think the Spatial Reasoning part of my brain just got left out. It makes building and decorating so, SO hard, but I love both and I'm stubborn, so I keep trying. Fortunately John's gotten really good at both being patient with my blank stares and also drawing things out in Photoshop, ha.)

Anyhoo, I bet you're ready to see the other side of the room now.

Here, we'll pivot together:

 

[Ross voice] "PIVOOOOT!"


Ta-daaa!

You know how much I dislike spending money, so everything on this side is done with things Ellie already had. That's her old bedside lamp, and we re-used the sparkly tulle that used to frame her headboard to make her mirror EXTRA glam:


These are floral picks from Joann's: I bent the wires into a U shape to act as a curtain tie-back, then attached with 2 thumbtacks.

The sparkly wings are from an old pegasus Halloween costume I found in Ellie's closet. I'm telling you, when decorating a kids' room, check their closets. From toys to costumes, they have so many fun things in there you can use!



There's a lesson here for us adults, too: why not hang the clothes/jewelry/bags you love like art? It's more personal, starts better conversations, and best of all: it'll make you happy.

Ellie's dress-up ears are perched on 2 thumbtacks, not attached, so they can easily be taken down when she wants to wear them.


Again, all things she already had - including the coat rack.

If I back up with a panorama you can see the last feature we added:



Ellie didn't have any toy storage that she could access herself, so I wanted to add some now that she's old enough to pick up on her own.

If you saw my last post then you already know alllll about these. (Or if you missed it, click here!) Her mom reports Ellie is happily using the bins, so hopefully that means there are less toys on the floor.
 



We bought unicorn art for all the walls, but at the last minute Ellie told us she wanted to keep her old baby photos up, too.

No problem; I just gathered all the photos together into a little gallery wall:


I'm a little partial to that top photo anyway, since I'm the one who took it. :P

We even kept Ellie's original name letters, which John and I first installed over her crib! (I tried to find a nursery photo, but apparently I only posted the cherry blossom mural and butterfly mobile we made for it. The mural is just OK, but I still think the mobile is one of the prettiest things I've ever made.) It's interesting - and very relatable - to see how Ellie is attached to these things she's known all her life.

The last thing to show you are the fun lights around the room:

The one new thing on this side is the unicorn nightlight, which comes with a remote so you can change the color or have it rotate through them all:


I've been told Ellie loves going to sleep with this on!

Then we added a string of LED lights in the reading canopy, which is just magical in low light:


OoooOOOoohh.

And that's the finished rainbow unicorn room!

The total cost for this makeover, which included the bedding, curtains, canopy, wall decals, lamp, color-changing nightlight, and even the unicorn book on the wall & stuffed animal on the bed, was about $150, all purchased from Amazon. The only extras were the paints for the rainbow and the vinyl name & stars we cut with our Cricut. I spent a lot of time finding everything, so I'm really pleased with how well it goes together!
 

I also put everything in a new List on my Amazon storefront for you, in case you'd like to browse. It includes everything we purchased, plus a few extras we didn't, but that would work well in the space. (The bedding keeps changing prices, but at the time we got it, it was about $35. And note that it only comes with one pillow sham, not two.)

I hope this was the rainbow you needed today, and reminds you to display the things you love, no matter HOW young, old, or weird you are. :p

::MWAH::