Upstairs, west bedroom

This bedroom is almost a mirror image of the east bedroom, with the exception of the closet. The other closet is a standard closet with a 5' opening. This room's closet is a triangular walk in closet located near the dormer instead of on the opposite wall. Because of the closet configuration, it is slightly larger.

Back in January, our oldest daughter received new bedding for her birthday. We bought a lot of accessories too, all in hot pink/black/white with zebra and leopard prints mixed in. It is a diva room! She wanted to keep that diva feel here and use as much as possible from her previous room. Her bed size will change from full to queen so we'll wait to see how the comforter fits, if it is too narrow we'll invest in a solid hot pink blanket or light comforter underneath that will extend down below her full sized comforter.

With the color scheme in mind, I asked her to think about a paint color that wouldn't compete, but serve as a neutral back drop to all of her bold colors and accessories. She chose Behr's Feather Gray for the walls and then borrowed the same Scented Valentine pink for her dormer as we used on the walls in her sister's room.

Hey, you can see the ozone generator in this image!

One thing that she did request was a graffiti wall. We discussed different options and then settled on creating a giant chalk board for her room.

We did this by purchasing a 4' x 8' piece of fiber board from Home Depot and painting it with chalk board paint. We decided to make it a magnetic board so we primed it with Rustoleum's Black Flat Magnetic Primer. One of my husband's co-workers had just completed a small project using Rustoleum's Chalk Board Paint and she gave us what was left so we didn't have to buy that.

The super smooth surface of the fiber board was perfect for this project. We screwed it to the wall then filled the screw holes with caulk. Once that dried we primed it with three thin coats of the magnetic primer. If you ever attempt to use this product let me suggest having it mixed at the paint counter before you leave. It is almost impossible to get completely blended at home, you'll be stirring for a good 15 minutes as the magnetic portion of the product settles to the bottom and is very heavy. To make the magnetic effect very strong, I think this would require more than three coats- at least five- but we used all that the can held and at $20 a quart I was not buying more. Once this had fully dried I painted it with two coats of chalkboard paint, again using all that remained in the can. It has a nice finish on it and will hold small magnets. I doubt it could hold anything heavier than a piece of paper, though, so it does have its limitations.

Once it was dry we used door trim to create a frame, nailing it directly to the wall. We caulked the nail holes and mitered corners and hit it with a final coat of white semi gloss. The frame makes the entire board look polished and it will be the perfect place for my daughter to do her graffiti. I'll try to remember to get a finished pic with the trim for you.

I told the girls we had to wait until H1 was sold before we'd be buying any accessories for H2. Then I saw this hot pink lamp for $10 at Walmart and knew it would be perfect so I ignored my own words and picked it up anyway.

Things left to do:
Had to replace a couple pieces of floor trim but got distracted with other projects so that needs to be finished. Also, the closet could really stand to be painted better. Its odd angles make it hard to get the corners but our sloppiness shows. Even though it is just a kids' closet, the time to make it right is now. I'm also painting the bed that will go in this room a distressed black. That has been started but not yet finished.