Right after my 12-year old’s birthday, she started on about re-doing her owl-themed bedroom. It was painted light blue and had owl paintings and owl curtains. After 4 years, she had finally outgrown it. I still felt as though I’d only just finished decorating our ‘new’ house. Her room was one of the first I tackled after the builders fixed the nail pops a year after we moved into the brand new house. It was definitely time for an update for her. If you’re looking for some ideas for your own preteen or teen, you’d better follow along!

Before

For the previous owl theme, I had painted three pictures for her. She had porcelain dolls from my childhood collection on the wall shelves and a wire cage hanging in the corner with a stuffed owl. This child’s theme was no longer suitable for an almost teen.

Teen Bedroom Must Haves

So when my oldest said she wanted to update her room, I couldn’t blame her. It’d really been just about the same as the pictures above for the last 4 years. For her new room, she said she wanted it to be gray and white, to have succulents and LED lights. She wanted simplicity. It was right up my alley since gray was in other parts of the house and I’m definitely a succulent lover. It’s really too bad that I’m also a succulent killer. Anyway…

I saw photos of this main geometric wall feature and really liked it. My preteen was on board with it, so she chose her colors with some guidance. We went with three Sherwin Williams colors:

Feather bedspread from the previous theme.

We used flat paint because that’s all that was available in the quart sizes of super paint. I don’t tend to like doing flat paint because it’s harder to clean. I like eggshell or satin for bedrooms. That being said, I will definitely give it to this flat paint for how smooth and even it goes on the wall. That is the benefit of flat paint. For this wall feature, I used painter’s tape to create the sections. You can really put them wherever you want. I painted the pink section first. Then while it was drying, I started on the other walls. I moved the tape from the outside of the pink area to the inside of the pink area to start on the dark gray section. It took me about half a day to paint her entire room with two coats.

Teen’s Ultimate Must Have

Her ‘must-have’ was a string of LED lights. She couldn’t wait for me to put them up on the wall with her and ended up putting them up by herself. Unfortunately, it ended up being slightly crooked and wobbly because of it. She loves them regardless and tends to use those LED lights rather than her ceiling light. If you’re looking for a sure-fire win with your teen, I’d say this is it.

Curtains for the Teen Bedroom

I’m generally floored with how expensive curtains can be, so I tend to do quite a bit of looking before buying. We looked at Target, HomeGoods, Walmart, and Boscov’s (all local options) for something to match that wouldn’t break my wallet right after all the Christmas purchases. We came up empty. I ended up being at Big Lots on 20% off day and found thick white curtains that would match the room and weren’t so sheer people on the street below would be able to see through. It was a huge win in my book. I like the large grommet look as well.

Other Small Teen Additions

She moved her earrings from her Hello Kitty holder to my DIY framed earring holder. Be sure to check out my easy tutorial!

She hung her Fuji Instant photos on a string of clip lights. Then I re-positioned her previous wall decor around it. All hung courtesy of Command Hooks.

She emptied a large bookcase filled with books in order to free up this space. I questioned where she would put everything, but she made it happen. It was a blond composite bookcase as tall as the windows that we’d gotten from my sister. The shelves were sagging a bit from the weight of years of books. I ended up cutting in half to make lemonade and bakery stand for my two other daughters. It was a win for them all.
All those books came to fill the shelves of this inset bookcase I did for her. I’d wanted to do this for 5 years and finally made it a priority. We were both over the moon with the result.

Desk Update

We used the leftover Rosy outlook and Dustblu to paint her purple desk. My preteen used the roller for the top of the desk because it was faster. This sadly ended up being a mistake because it now has a bumpy surface. You can see my gray and white striped hallway through the doorway, click the link for my run through on how to get the look.
“Yuck!” is how I feel about this finish. She says she doesn’t care, but she has to put a hard surface under her paper to be able to write neatly. I’m pretty sure I will sand it down at some point and fix the issue.
She (and I) would love to paint these dressers white or get a different set. They were mine as a kid and still have a pristine finish. I love a good refinish project as you can probably tell from this blog.
Every teen needs a mirror to check out their outfit. This is her Command hooks closet door. Truly, this post could be sponsored by Command hooks with how much I love them. The mirror is held up by them, the purses and hats are hanging on the command hooks, the light strings are hung with the special light ones. We painted the trim of this cheap mirror with acrylic paint.

Succulents

My daughter is a girl after my own heart. I love succulents and buying them. Most often, I seem to be throwing my money away because I couldn’t keep a hen and chick succulent alive to save my life. So for this pretty setup, we went fake. 

A another hint of succulents from Michaels when they were on sale. This octagon shelf was a mommy-daughter project. I really liked how it all came together.

Completed Teen Bedroom Makeover

So that rounds out what we did to bring her kid’s room up to teen room standards. Even as I write that, I’m stunned that I’m old enough to be a mom to an almost teen. She’s still pestering for a full-size bed and new dressers and I’m still generating ideas on how to make the bed. My parents made several unique beds for us, so I know I could do it. I’ll have to make it an incentive to get her to control her teenage attitude. Ha. I don’t know that even that would work.

The new bed set big enough for a future full-size bed.

And that’s all she wrote…literally….I’m done. I hope you got some ideas out of it for your own teen’s room!

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