By Sarah Van Arsdale
If your little girl is complaining about her boring bedroom, it may be time to look into ways you can transform a ho-hum kids' room into a magical fairly land. And it may well be less expensive and easier than you think.
If you have the kind of little girl who loves "sugar and spice and all things nice," you may want to start with painting the walls of her room a pale pink or pale lavender. The word "pale" is key here. If the colors are too bright or too dark, the effect won't be fairy tale but will be overwhelming. The look you're aiming for here is soft and gentle, not Pepto-pink.
With pale pink or lavender walls, the trim can be a bright glossy white without appearing jarring. Gauzy white curtains that let the light in will add to the magical effect.
Furniture for the room doesn't need to be expensive; an old dresser rescued from the basement or the second-hand store will serve nicely. All you have to do is prepare it for painting, and then put on a couple of coats of bright white paint. Of course, you'll make sure the paint is washable, because no matter how sweet your little girl is, she is a kid, and you'll want to be able to wash off fingerprints and other marks easily.
A side chair or rocking chair, a bookcase, a toy chest, all also painted bright white, will complete the look without breaking the bank. To feminize them, you could use stencils to paint on flowers or butterflies, but be sparing with these; you don't want to clutter the spring-time fresh look.
Now, for the really fun part.
What will make a little princess' room really magical is the addition of the special accessory: a canopy on the bed. Hearthsong makes one such canopy, which hangs over the bed from the ceiling - so it can be used with any kind of bed, and doesn't need a four-poster or a canopy bed.
This canopy has gauzy curtains which can be pulled part-way closed, giving your little girl her own private sleeping place where she can day dream, or read, or whisper secrets to her stuffed animals. Hearthsong also carries other canopies so if your little girl is out of the princess stage and into horses, fairies or even undersea themes, there's a canopy that will fit the decor of her room.
The canopy (below left) from Rooms To Go Kids also gives a fairy-tale feeling to the room, but this room is decorated more to evoke a middle-eastern or 1001 Arabian Nights feeling. The quilted pillows, big potted palm, lampshade and curtain complete the feeling of fantastical journeys here. If your child is looking for something even brighter, the strong sophisticated color scheme of their Totally Tangerine bed canopy (below right) might be just right.
Don't feel that you're limited to hanging these gauzy fun canopies strictly over the bed either. If your child's bed simply won't accommodate a hanging canopy - if you've got bunkbeds for instance - don't despair. There's no reason that a canopy can't be suspended over a chair or even some floor pillows - they don't require much more than a simple hook in the ceiling to hang. This will still create a cozy nook where your child can escape with a good book or a bunch of dolls. You can even bring them outside, suspending them from a tree, to create a temporary outdoor playhouse.
Sometimes, one special accessory, such as a bed canopy can add a great deal of impact to a child's bedroom for very little money. Why not make the decor of your little girl's bedroom a magical place where her imagination can run wild?
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