Whimsical Toddler Room : ORC Week 1

I cannot believe it’s time again for another One Room Challenge. My first challenge was last fall, when I took my warm beige family room and make it into a bold and dramatic space of blues and greens. And oh don’t forget the two murals I hand painted! If you’d like to read about it, click here to see how it turned out. Six months later, I’m absolutely in love with the way the room turned out. The bold colors and patterns have wow-ed every single guest that has come home and hung out with us.

A reason my first ORC challenge will always be special, is because we found out that I was pregnant with my second child, after almost 2 years of trying to conceive. Which now leads into the reason why my second ORC challenge is special. I am about to enter my third trimester of my pregnancy, and the nesting phase has begun. For this ORC, we are switching the guest room into Rachel’s toddler room. My baby girl, turns 3 years old this month and she has a design mind of her own. She truly has a keen eye for colors and knows what she wants.

It's quite hilarious though, how I grew up with brothers and grew up like a tomboy. I barely liked wearing dresses and did not know how to play with dolls. I don’t remember quite being interested in anything “girly”. And for the most part I have tried to raise Rachel in a neutral way without forcing any gender related stereotype on her. So now she is a girl who loves rainbows and dinosaurs with equal passion. She enjoys cooking and watching us use handy tools to build things around the house.

Rachel absolutely enjoys color and has a very good eye on shades of the color and how to layer colors well while painting. So, I’ve been excited to have her be a part of this design process. I ask her questions and show her several options, while genuinely listening to her feedback. We were deciding the colors for her room and I wanted to do a moody mauve color, but she wants a PURPLE room! I loathe purple wall paint. But John, her dad, was actually quite excited by a purple room, that my opinion got veto-ed out.

I then went on Etsy to search for several wallpaper options, this would be my first time ever working with wall paper, but I finally wanted to take the plunge and try it out. I showed her several options that I liked, and she choose the whimsical animal wallpaper. The wall paper came in 3 color options for the sky. I wanted beige, dad and daughter wanted blue. And I got veto-ed out again.

To then select the shade of purple for her room, I brought out my pantone color fan, and both Dad and daughter instantly choose the same shade of lavender. I definitely tried to show her other colors, but they both didn’t budge.

I think by now, you might have gotten the gist of how this room is being designed. I am merely the executor of the design ideas of my 3 year old. Her design choices are far from my comfort zone, but it is her room and I will figure out a way to make it happen. As I type this blog post, I realize she might in fact be my very first interior design client, ha!

I took her to the paint store, to pick out the paint samples. I let her loose and asked her to pick out the colors for her room. She chose white, purple and mauve. And while I didn’t understand why she picked the mauve, it led to a brain wave for me. Which is possibly my favorite design element in the room.

This room is definitely going to be interesting; I feel like I am pushing myself out of my comfort zone. Also due to the pregnancy, my energy levels are all over the place. I’m not sure how my body will cooperate, and I know tasks are going to take much longer to finish. But I’m SO excited 😊

Here are some before photos of the room we are redesigning.